


The Angel of the East Entrance

by seashadows



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Doctors & Physicians, F/M, For Science!, Friends to Lovers, Hand Jobs, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:54:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 46,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23287366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seashadows/pseuds/seashadows
Summary: “Oh, I’d watch my mouth here, I really would,” the man scolded, although it was clear he was more frightened than anything. “I only wanted to help!”Crowley shook his head and let out a low whistle. “You helped, all right,” he said. “More than helped. What are you, a bona fide angel?”The angel in question went pale, and Crowley wondered what exactly he’d said wrong this time. That was him, always mucking up conversations; shit like this was why he didn’t really talk to people except for those he trusted, and trust was a bit hard to come by when you were always railing at God for making kids sick.(Aziraphale Fell is a reclusive immunologist and Anthony Crowley is a cardiologist with a chip on his shoulder. Together, they seek to solve a high-stakes medical mystery while fighting feelings they’ve tried to ignore for sixteen years.)
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 110
Kudos: 112
Collections: Chaotic Omens: The Fallout of a Big Bang





	1. sealed the secret of our tryst

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah - this is my Doctors AU. :D 
> 
> All medical terms that aren't defined in the text are defined in the clickable endnotes. Also, chapter titles are from the lyrics of Medical Love Song by Monty Python. (It's very dirty.) 
> 
> A note: the medical professionals in this story, in accordance with the source material, will end up doing some things that aren't strictly legal. Rest assured that it's all for a good cause. 
> 
> Thank you very much to meinposhbastard for the AMAZING beta-read. 
> 
> There's a small spoiler that deals with perceived (not actual) issues of consent - it's in the final notes, as it does contain spoilers. If you want to read it, you can go there now.

_October 1, 2001_

Crowley might have passed the man by if his mannerisms hadn’t made him stop short. Who wrung their hands in this day and age? What century was it? _Huh_ , he thought, and turned around, backtracking to the nervous-looking blond man in one of the seats outside the Chief of Medicine’s office. Now that he thought about it, he looked familiar. 

“I know you,” he said.

The man looked up and his hands stopped mid-squeeze. “Mm?” He swallowed hard. “Sorry?”

Another Brit. Crowley couldn’t help how his eyes widened - a new hire from the sister hospital in Oxford, probably, just like him. This one was London for sure. He remembered hearing him talk to the new boss about food with an enthusiasm Crowley had never seen on the topic, and he’d only not listened in for fear of being weird. But if he wanted to find out more about who this soft-looking, pastry-loving doctor was, he had to get him talking. Mysteries were made to be solved, after all, and questions were made to be asked. 

“I said I know you,” he said. “I s’pose that one went over like a lead balloon, my apologies.” He held out his hand. “I saw you at the new hires dinner, didn’t I? I remember now.”

“Oh! Yes. Yes, I think…yes.” The man shook his hand with surprising strength. Crowley would have expected the handshake equivalent of a dead fish from someone wearing a waistcoat, but you learned something new every day. “I’m sorry, I’m just a bit discombobulated at the moment.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?” Definitely London, but _posh_ London. He wouldn’t have been surprised if this one went to Eton or somewhere else they still served terrible food and caned the students, and everyone pretended the nighttime gay encounters hadn’t happened when they all went off to get married. Not that this man would ever be able to pretend. Even frowning, he was clearly gayer than Crowley’s last patient on the gas and air[1]. His smile and movements at the dinner had said it all. Also, he’d talked about crepes. Who did that? But that smile was one hundred percent gone now, and Crowley suspected that wasn’t normal for him. 

“Hey, are you okay?”

The man blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Your smile – it’s gone. You were smiling like anything at that dinner, but you look upset now. What happened?”

“I…”

“In trouble already, are you?” Crowley couldn’t keep from needling him and he didn’t know why.

“No!” the man exclaimed. “I mean, not quite. Sort of. I treated patients for free.”

Only with a great amount of effort was Crowley able to reel in his jaw. “You _what?_ ” His accent was showing, his _fucking_ accent that he worked so hard to suppress, but this was too juicy for him to care. If this guy figured out that Crowley came from Southwark rather than Belgravia or wherever he himself was from, well, this was America. Class associations weren’t supposed to exist.

“I couldn’t help it!” The words came out as a cry, almost pleading, as if he wanted – _needed_ – Crowley to understand why he’d done what he’d done. “She was a first responder, and she was expecting already, poor thing, and she was so hurt that I couldn’t just send her back out there with the smoke and dust and all the people, and…and I’d only been here a few months and…” His round cheeks went pink. “I’ve no idea how this system works. So I…”

“You fudged,” Crowley breathed. “And you didn’t even do it on purpose. Son of a –“

“Oh, I’d watch my mouth here, I really would,” the man scolded, although it was clear he was more frightened than anything. “I only wanted to help!”

Crowley shook his head and let out a low whistle. “You helped, all right,” he said. “More than helped. What are you, a bona fide angel?”

The angel in question went pale, and Crowley wondered what exactly he’d said wrong this time. That was him, always mucking up conversations; shit like this was why he didn’t really talk to people except for those he trusted, and trust was a bit hard to come by when you were always railing at God for making kids sick. 

“No! I…I only wanted to…”

“Are you sacked?”

“No,” said the man, and deflated a bit. Now that Crowley looked closely at him, he couldn’t have been more than thirty-five, probably around Crowley’s own age. And he wore _waistcoats_. This was someone who would bear further watching. “No, thank God. I’ve been roundly reprimanded, and I’ve absolutely _got_ to learn every rule there is about this system. But I was trying to help, and she…she realizes that.”

“Who, the Chief?”

“Mm-hm. And Dr. Evangelatos.” 

“Evangelatos,” Crowley repeated. He finally placed the name to a tall man with way too many teeth who’d done almost all the talking last night. He _knew_ there was a reason he hadn’t liked him. “He’s on your case about treating a patient? Right. He’s officially on my shit list.” 

“Oh, no!” the man exclaimed. “Please don’t do that. I don’t want you to be in trouble as well.” 

Crowley shrugged. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’d take my hat off to you if I was wearing one. Insurance is bollocks here, utter bollocks. The NHS has its problems, but at least –“

“Best not to question insurance, I don’t think,” said the man hurriedly, and Crowley couldn’t blame him after what he’d just gone through. “The system works quite well. Er, how did you end up here?”

“Transferred from the Oxford St. Judith’s to make some trouble over here,” Crowley said, and grinned. The man tilted his head. “Joking, angel. Joking. But wouldn’t it be funny if I did the right thing and you did the wrong thing? That was another joke,” he said, off the strange look he got. “Treating patients for free _is_ the right thing. I wish I’d thought of doing that.” 

“It wouldn’t be funny at all,” said the man, looking horrified. “And I’m not an angel. I do have a name, you know. I ought to properly introduce myself.” He held out his hand, looking much more comfortable now that introductions were on the table. Terra firma and all that. “Aziraphale Fell, immunology.”

Crowley shook his hand. “Anthony Crowley, cardiology. Call me Crowley. _Aziraphale_ , really? Is that Biblical or something?”

“Yes indeed, a rather obscure name. I’m impressed you know it.” Aziraphale adjusted his bow tie. “I’m not sure what it means, but my parents liked it, and…”

That, of course, was when the code blue alarm went off. Crowley scrounged in the pocket of his scrubs for his access card – who knew if this was intensive care – and came up empty. “Fuck!” he spat. “When it rains, it pours!”

Aziraphale looked around, as if expecting another reprimand, and pulled out his own card and handed it to Crowley before putting his hands over his ears. “Here’s an umbrella for that,” he said. So he had a sense of humor after all. “Find me later!”

“Thanksss,” Crowley said fervently, accidentally letting slip a bit of the old speech impediment that might have kept him out of medical school for the worst reasons if he’d grown up here, rather than in a place where entrance exams determined your fate. “I will.” And he ran, because there were people to save.

* * *

_December 24, 2007_

Basements, Crowley had found, tended to be dank and lit by flickering fluorescents even in the best of hospitals. Much as St. Judith’s touted itself as a haven of modern medicine and conveniences, the fact remained that the place had still been built in the ‘50s, and the basement still hadn’t caught up to the rest of the world.

Crowley hadn’t expected anything different, really. He’d been down here often enough that the eerie environment was almost a comfort, just like the two men at the end of the hall. _Lurking_ was the only word that adequately described what the two of them were doing. From the looks of them, they’d lurked for hours and would probably lurk for the rest of the evening, even after he left. Logically, Crowley knew they were just standing around on break, but their current activity definitely wasn’t hospital-approved. It added to the lurky ambiance. “Hey, guys,” he said. “Smoking? Really?”

Hastur looked at his cigarette as if he’d just realized he was holding it, and stubbed it out against his thigh. Crowley winced. “Flash bastard,” he said to Ligur. Great. He was doing that thing where he pretended Crowley wasn’t there, yet again. And this time, Crowley hadn’t even annoyed him enough to deserve it. “Wears sunglasses, even when he don’t need them.”

“Knock it off!” said Crowley. “You don’t see me complaining about your dye job.”

“You ask me, he’s been up there too long,” Ligur agreed, pointedly ignoring his protest. “Should’ve become a pathologist, Crowley. We could use you down here.” He sardonically lifted the corner of one lip in a facsimile of a smile. “Love to have the doctor who diagnosed the plague.”

“Uh,” Crowley said, because that was the best way to deal with these two. Their in-jokes were only funny in small doses. Whoever said that pathologists had no social skills was right on the money. “Yeah. Sorry, meant to be down here fifteen minutes ago, but someone came in with a case of angina[2] at the last minute and –“

“Well, you’re late,” Hastur interrupted. “That means we get to tell _you_ the fun things we did down here, and you have to listen. You know the rules.” He flashed Crowley a smug smile. Crowley grimaced, but let him. He did deserve it for wasting their time. And the last time Hastur had been late to a get-together, _he’d_ gotten to regale him with the details of an emergency cardiac catheterization, so fair was fair. “I diagnosed a case of diverticulosis[3]. Now he’s the gastroenterologist’s problem.”

“I led an autopsy,” Ligur said. “The writeup will be finished soon.”

Crowley held out his hands. “Great!” he said, and searched for something to make them light up. “You’ll like this. I diagnosed a case of Takotsubo cardiomyopathy[4] today.” Off their blank looks, he added, “Broken heart syndrome. It’s really interesting.”

“Have you got any samples?” said Hastur.

“Not yet. Should come down for grossing day after tomorrow.”

Ligur frowned. “Then why are we supposed to care?”

Crowley rolled his eyes and was, once again, grateful for his sunglasses. “It’ll be useful to you on the 26th when you get to take it apart,” he said. Pathologists were weird, but if he wanted to call them his friends, he would have to deal with it like a big boy. “So – you paged me. What’ve you got for me?”

In response, Ligur held up a form with an image clipped to it. Crowley scanned it and groaned. “ _No_.”

“Yes,” Ligur said. “I performed the Gram stain[5] myself.”

“Endocarditis[6],” said Crowley, and sighed. “Dammit.”

“Why so glum?” Hastur asked. “This is it. You’ve been _waiting_ for that, haven’t you? Came down special and asked us to rush it, didn’t he, Ligur?” He made a vague motion up and down. “You’re standing here with a long face. Why?”

Crowley snorted. “You two are pretty far removed from patient care these days, aren’t you?”

Ligur pursed his lips. “We still know that antibiotics are the treatment of choice, Crowley. We’re pathologists, not medical students.”

Crowley acknowledged that with a shudder. “He’s _four months_ , Ligur. Likely recent history of strep, so this is probably rheumatic fever[7]. I’m worried we haven’t caught it early enough and he’ll have complications for the rest of his life, because neither of his parents remembers if the other one made him take his full course of fucking antibiotics.”

Hastur brought his dead cigarette to his lips and glared at it. “This is the ambassador’s kid?”

“Warlock Dowling,” Crowley said. “What are the odds? Not the ambassador’s kid thing, I mean rheumatic fever. I know I’m going to sound like a prick for saying it, but this is America, for fuck’s sake.” Frustrated, he ran a hand through his hair. “We’ll just keep going with the antibiotics, then – he’s not got a penicillin allergy. Keep him at least a few weeks. His parents will go spare.”

“But they’re not your patients,” Ligur said. “The boy is.”

This was why he hung out with them. Not the social skills or their strange, shared jokes, but their insight. That and Hastur could down a shot followed by an amaretto sour like some kind of wicked party trick. “True,” Crowley said. “Look, thanks for the information, but I’ve got to go.” He currently knew one person at St. Judith’s who would be able to properly sympathize, and he worked all the way on the eastern side of the hospital.

“Oh, yes,” said Ligur. He and Hastur raised their eyebrows at each other. “It’s my night on surgical sign-out. Party safely, Crowley. Enjoy the air up there.”

“We’ll enjoy our slides of chronic gastritis[8],” said Hastur, and both pathologists snickered.

Crowley shoved the papers into the folder he’d brought, wished them a happy Christmas, and made a quick getaway. Endocarditis in a baby, a tiny baby who had years and years to show complications? It was a problem he needed to forget, at least for one night.

Lucky for him, it was the night of the hospital’s annual Christmas party, because apparently no one around here socialized. Lucky for them, neither did he.

The main conference area downstairs was reasonably empty, and the drinks table was wide open. Crowley grabbed a glass and poured himself some red wine; he didn’t care what it was, only that it was alcoholic. His flat was on the tube – no, the subway – line and his Bentley was back in England, so it wasn’t like he could hurt himself or anyone else by taking the train drunk.

“Crowley?” Someone, a very welcome someone, tapped his shoulder.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley sighed, and took a gulp of his drink. “I need to talk to you.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale swirled his glass of wine – red, like Crowley’s. “Is it about why you cried off lunch?”

“Yeah. I had an emergency patient.” Crowley knocked back another significant portion of wine. “Endocarditis, of all the things.” He pushed his glasses up higher on his nose. “I need alcohol, angel. Quite extraordinary amounts of alcohol.”

Aziraphale sputtered wordlessly for a few seconds and finally pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t – you _can’t_ call me that,” he said, just as he always did when they were in public, leaning in and lowering his voice before taking a drink of his own wine. “Look, if anyone else ever finds out why you call me that, I’d never be respected again! No intern would want to work under a doctor who accidentally did...” He looked around and lowered his voice. “... _too much pro bono_.” 

“Don’t worry,” said Crowley. “I plan to take it to my grave.” He looked at his glass, the contents of which were as dark and sloshy as his mood, and then back at Aziraphale. “How are things in immunology?”

Aziraphale looked like he wanted to say something else, but after a moment, he licked his lips and took a sip instead. “They’re going,” he said. “I’ve got an interesting case, a boy with X-linked agammaglobulinemia[9].”

Crowley could put Greek and Latin roots together as well as the next doctor, but on a night like this, he preferred to tease. “Haven’t touched anything immunological since I started my specialization, Dr. Fell,” he said. “Can you explain it like I’m five? Or maybe a fetus.” God, he hoped the Dowling kid would respond to antibiotics. He slipped his hand down and made sure his pager was still in his pocket. Fuck Christmas; if he needed to come in on emergency call tomorrow, he would.

“Oh, for the love of –“ Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Would you at least take those ridiculous glasses off before I speak? It’s dreadfully rude not to look someone in the eyes.”

“Right. Yeah, let me do that.” Crowley reached up and pulled off his sunglasses. Hastur and Ligur were right only in that he _sometimes_ wore sunglasses when he didn’t need to. The hospital lights could be murder on his sensitive eyes some days, and he tended to forget that he wore them. “Just for future reference, it might not be a good idea to say ‘ridiculous glasses’ to someone with photosensitivity[10] issues.”

“I know you’ve got photosensitivity issues,” Aziraphale said. “This room’s so dark, I’m surprised you’re not stumbling about.”

“Snake reflexes.” Crowley put out his tongue. Aziraphale was right, though. It was dark enough both inside and outside that he didn’t really need the sunglasses. 

Aziraphale sighed. “Are you trying to be funny?”

Crowley snorted and scratched his head. When was the last time he’d had a shower? “Better to laugh than cry. And you called me a snake when I stole your drink that one time - look, would you lay off?” He pursed his lips to keep them from trembling. “I have an endocarditis patient, okay? He’s four months old and I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do if he has complications.” 

“I understand why you’re upset, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, and put his hand lightly on Crowley’s shoulder. “It’s frightening to care for a child who’s so sick. Goodness, I have few enough patients these days and I still remember that.” He squeezed lightly, and Crowley flared with warmth that had very little to do with the wine. “When was the last time you ate something? You’re swaying.”

Crowley thought about it, or at least went through the motions of thinking about it while he stalled for time. He did, in fact, remember exactly what he ate and when: a protein bar in the five minutes between ordering blood cultures and hearing from a nurse that baby Warlock had splinter hemorrhages[11] under his tiny fingernails. The Gram stain that Ligur showed him had further decreased his appetite. 

“Erm, a while,” he finally said, and wilted in the face of Aziraphale’s stare. “What? I’ve been busy, angel.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “Good lord,” he said, “you need to stop running yourself ragged, you ridiculous man.” He pushed his full plate into Crowley’s hands. “I can get more. You stay right here while I do, Crowley. And no handing off your food to someone else!”

“That was once,” said Crowley – but Aziraphale did have a point.

People were beginning to trickle in, so Crowley leaned against the nearest wall and people-watched while Aziraphale went to the food tables. He recognized a few of them, but the hospital was big enough (and he was solitary enough) that he was mostly familiar with Cardiology and other sub-departments of Internal Medicine. _Prick,_ he thought as Dr. Evangelatos walked by. Six years ago, he’d been the one to insist that Aziraphale’s accidental _pro bono_ patient indicated a malicious misuse of hospital resources, even though anyone with eyes could tell that Aziraphale didn’t have a malicious bone in his body. 

He did wear smart suits, though, and Crowley appreciated that. If only he wore colors other than fucking neutrals, like he thought himself a classier version of the Twilight vampires, he might have a chance of moving from purgatory to hell in Crowley’s mind. That, and maybe get the stick out of his arse and the smug smile off his face.

“Good, you’ve not left.” Aziraphale’s voice. Crowley blinked and refocused on his friend, who had a plate piled even higher with food than the one he’d handed Crowley. “Have you tried anything off the – oh, I see you haven’t. Eat, eat.” As always, he was even more insistent about food than Mum, and that was saying something. “You’re going to be okay, right? I don’t need to…watch you?” He stared at Crowley with worried round eyes, chewing on his lip.

“No, angel.” Crowley’s hand spasmed as he started to reach for Aziraphale’s and caught himself. Aziraphale didn’t deserve to be saddled with his strange fascination, especially if he didn’t return it. _Since_ he didn’t return it. “I’m not gonna…you know. Nothing they’ll have to pump my stomach for, if you know what I mean. I’ll get drunk, go home, and watch whatever shit’s on television at this hour, all right?”

“That sounds a dreadful way to spend Christmas Eve,” said Aziraphale, popping a hors d’oeuvre into his mouth. Crowley thought it looked like a shrimp puff, or at least something made out of puff pastry. Someone who might have been a surgeon brushed past them, as the pricks usually did. “I’ve no idea why the hospital chose to have their party tonight. Aren’t we all meant to have lives?”

“Pot, meet kettle,” said Crowley. “Besides, this is Manhattan, and we’re doctors. No one has a life.” He squinted across the room. “Wait, isn’t that kid a little young?” He tossed back the rest of his wine and waved at the knot of doctors a few feet away. “Shem!” Dr. Noah Shem, a psychiatrist who was one of Crowley’s few acquaintances outside Cardiology, looked up. “Why’ve you got your little unicorn here? There’s alcohol. Got to be some sort of violation.”

“I am _not_ a unicorn!” said the teenager next to him, putting her hands on her hips and indignantly thrusting out her chin. She wore horn-rimmed glasses that made her look about five years younger than she probably was. In a decade or so, she’d be able to pull off ‘witchy chic,’ but for now, she just looked nerdy. Crowley had been there himself. “I’m Anathema Device. I’m shadowing Dr. Shem today.”

“Could’ve fooled me. That topknot could put someone’s eye out.” Crowley bit his lips to hide his grin as the girl puffed up like an agitated grouse. “Only teasing, kid. I just don’t want anyone catching hell here.”

Aziraphale made an irritated noise. “Oh, let her stay. There are non-alcoholic drinks for people on call. You, Miss – Device, is it? Yes, Miss Device, be sure to stay at that table. We wouldn’t want anyone to get in trouble for your sake, would we? There we go, I knew you would understand.”

Crowley pushed himself away from the wall and shifted his glass in his hand. “I’m going for more wine.”

“Get me some,” Aziraphale said.

Maybe he could kill two birds with one stone. “You know what?” Crowley said. “Give me a minute. I’ve got a better idea.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ll see,” said Crowley, and went back to the drinks table. By some stroke of luck, no one was looking, and his coat was roomy enough that he could stick in three bottles of wine and just pretend he was keeping his arms stiffly at his sides. _Hallway,_ he mouthed at Aziraphale as he loped over, trying to look casual. Thank fuck, Aziraphale took the hint and led the way out.

They walked silently out of the conference room, Crowley leading them out the door and into the night. “The third alternative rendezvous point,” he told Aziraphale with a smile. The first and second were within the hospital itself, not great places to get drunk. “I’ll pay your train fare.” 

The third alternative rendezvous point was in fact Crowley’s flat, named that during one of his attempts to be ironic. Aziraphale had roundly called him out on it at the time, but the name stuck due to their mutual weird sense of humor. The flat itself was a shit studio, but the rent was low enough that he’d be able to buy a real place before too long, and it had room for a very cool metal bed that he’d found at an antique shop. 

Crowley plopped down on it as soon as they got down there, then took the bottles out of his coat. “Cheers. Good choice, eh? No one’ll keep us from getting pissed here.”

Aziraphale helped himself to one of the bottles and sat down next to him, then took his keyring out of his coat and popped the cork out with a tiny corkscrew that folded out of a tube. “I’ll do yours, too, if you want,” he said, and Crowley eagerly handed over his bottle. Aziraphale’s hands worked with a deftness that their plumpness belied, and soon Crowley had his bottle back.

He took a long swig, relishing the burn down his throat. It had been a while since he’d last drunk anything alcoholic. “So. Things are okay with you?”

“You’ve already asked me,” Aziraphale said.

“Yeah, but I said immunology, didn’t I? I mean in that lab you’re always visiting. How’s it going there?”

“Oh. Oh, yes, quite all right.” Aziraphale took a drink, and Crowley watched the smooth line of his throat as he tilted his chin upward. No one had a right to be so cute. Hell, no one had a right to be so _beautiful_ , to take features that should have been average and transmute them into a face so wonderfully expressive that it was captivating. “Things are…going. I have a feeling that we’re right on the edge of some amazing technological advances, but…” He made a frustrated little noise. “Why can’t time move the way I want it to?”

Crowley took another drink. He would have _stopped_ time for Aziraphale if he could, never mind making it move faster. Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to lock this moment in his mind: Aziraphale clutching a bottle of wine as Crowley himself stood scant feet away, those big eyes staring right at him. He could almost imagine that he felt the warmth of Aziraphale’s body bridge the space between them. “Shame,” he said. “Bottoms up.”

When he hit the bottom of the bottle, he was surprised to find that lifting it made him sway. “Oof,” he said as the world spun. “Where’s my tolerance?”

“You didn’t eat,” said Aziraphale, who sounded a little muzzy himself. “Told me so. Here – come here.” He patted the space next to him, and Crowley gladly scooted closer. “You’re so thin. Got to eat more often if you’re going to drink. And I…I should drink more.” He held his hand in front of his face. “I lost _my_ tolerance. Still got five fingers up, though.”

“’s’good,” said Crowley. “Pass your blood alcohol…thing. D’you want the other bottle? We can share.” He thought of Aziraphale’s mouth and his on the same ring of glass, and his heart skipped a beat.

Aziraphale answered for him by taking the third bottle off the bed, where it had fallen out of Crowley’s coat, and neatly popping it open. “Cheers, my dear,” he said, took a gulp, and passed it over to Crowley. “If only I had a hip flask, or you did. You wouldn’t happen to have a flask? One of those little…” He fluttered his hand in the air. “Lovely little hip flasks?”

“Wouldn’t bring one to work,” Crowley said, rolling his eyes. He didn’t bother wiping the mouth of the bottle before he drank from it, and hoped fervently that Aziraphale wouldn’t notice. “Do you _want_ me to get sacked, Aziraphale? Be awful right about now. Holiday indulgence, lotsa ‘mergent cath…catha…heart cathetering[12].”

“Ooh, no,” said Aziraphale. “Don’t want that. This place would be dreadfully boring without you.” He hiccupped and leaned against Crowley’s shoulder. “The lab’s moving ever so slowly. I think the machines all hate me.”

Crowley patted him somewhere he hoped was decent and took another drink. His vision was a bit clouded, and years of experience as a doctor – and a former university student – told him that his judgment was probably off as well. “Aren’t we an unlucky pair?” he said, and swigged from the bottle. “There’s me with the endo…endocarditis kid, and you with the bad lab. And Dr. Arsehole. You see him at the party? I did.”

“You’re rambling, my dear,” said Aziraphale, and clumsily began to massage Crowley’s shoulder and arm. “Very, very tense. You should get this from a professional.”

“What, babbled at?”

“No, no, a massage.” Aziraphale extended a forefinger and tapped Crowley’s forehead. “Stop using your brain so much. Do you see other animals doing this when they have big brains? Worrying so much?”

Crowley thought about his response, which felt a lot like falling through half-set jelly. “Can you worry if you can’t talk?”

Aziraphale blinked at him as slowly as a loving cat. Crowley didn’t delude himself that it could be for the same reason. “What’s your point?”

“Dolphins,” Crowley said. “That’s my point. Dolphins. Big brains. Size of…size of…encephalitis[13].” He was briefly proud of himself for getting the word out intact. “Big old swollen brains. They don’t go about worrying, do they? No, they don’t. They just do stuff to each other.”

“Octopuses, too,” Aziraphale said with a burp. “Great big ones.”

“It’s octopi,” said Crowley. “Or…octopodes? What public school’d you go to, they didn’t teach you that?”

Aziraphale snort-laughed. “None of your business,” he said. “I’m not in _public school_ anymore, Crowley. Can’t be a student. ‘m’n’attending.”

“Nerd,” Crowley corrected. “Laboratory nerd.”

“Still an immunologist,” said Aziraphale. “Ooh, can you imagine if…if _gorillas_ had our brains?”

Crowley’s soused brain decided that that was the most valid point in the world, and he took another drink of wine, then flailed his hands in the air. “Yeah, I can. Closest living relatives, right? Hear about climate change, they’d climb out of those nests of theirs and go ‘what’re they putting in bananas these days?’ _Whoosh!_ ” He sailed a hand over Aziraphale’s head for no reason except that he wanted to get close enough to smell his shampoo.

“They live in nests?” said Aziraphale, blinking slowly.

“Yeah. Ground-dwellers, that’s why the knuckle-walking.” Crowley stifled a hiccup. “Read it in a book.”

Aziraphale spent several seconds visibly pondering this. “They evolved that way,” he said, in the same tone that Archimedes might have used to cry ‘eureka!’. “Jus’ like…jus’ like we evolved for the…the endocarditis. Smooth endothelium[14].” His hands fluttered. “It’s a sad fact of life.”

Crowley sat back against the wall. Fuck, he’d managed to forget about the bloody Dowling case for a minute, and Aziraphale just had to go ahead and remind him. His hand went compulsively back to his silent pager, and he fumbled it clumsily out of his pocket, nearly dropping it in his lap. Everything looked a bit blurry around the edges. But that was to be expected, after - he calculated - a bottle and a half of wine. 

“Don’t really want to think about it.” 

He satisfied himself that the volume was on, at least. He was off-shift, and the night shift had things well under control when he left, but he’d be there if the Dowlings needed him after twelve hours or so. Wouldn’t be responsible to go over there drunk, even if he wasn’t _that_ drunk. 

“Dreadfully sorry,” said Aziraphale. “Oh, oh, no – are you _crying_ , dear? No, no, don’t cry!” He lifted a hand, missed Crowley’s shoulder entirely, and went sprawling sideways across Crowley’s lap, warm and heavy across his thighs. Neurons lit up and sent feelings that Crowley didn’t even want to think about running up his spine. “Please don’t.”

Crowley touched his eyes and was surprised to see his fingertips come away wet. “Not crying,” he said. “No, angel, I’m _not_. ‘s’the wine.”

“And the endocarditis,” said Aziraphale, far more insightful than any drunk person had a right to be. “Can’t forget it. You can’t, I mean.” He nodded sagely. His fair brows were pinched with visible worry. “I’m sorry, dear,” he added, and patted Crowley’s face with a warm hand. “I don’t want you to be upset.”

“I’m _not_ ,” Crowley repeated. Aziraphale looked up at him. “Seriously, come on, sit up.” He helped haul Aziraphale into a sitting position and Aziraphale ended up in his lap, nearly nose to nose with him. His eyes looked blue, stormy blue. “Personal space.”

“You’re upset,” said Aziraphale.

Crowley kissed him.

He’d dreamed of this moment for six long years, had imagined how Aziraphale’s mouth might taste. For all of Aziraphale’s generous gestures of friendship, his touches and ‘dear’s, he’d never implied that he wanted anything like _this_ \- but God, maybe he did. Apart from the slight tang of wine, his mouth tasted like nothing much, mild and salty. Crowley couldn’t get enough. He moaned and grabbed Aziraphale’s face in his hands, feeling Aziraphale first stiffen and then melt against him. Those plump hands came to rest on his waist and squeezed him. 

“Ah – fuck…”

“Fuck,” Aziraphale echoed, and this time, Crowley wasn’t sure who kissed who. Aziraphale was leaning forward in his lap; Crowley’s back met the whitewashed brick wall and he pushed back against it, using the pressure to brace himself and hold on to Aziraphale at the same time. “Ooh,” said Aziraphale, “oh, _yes_ , Crowley, mmm, I want –“

Crowley fell backwards and growled in frustration as his head clonked against the metal monstrosity that passed for a headboard. “Ow,” he said. “Gotta shift position.” 

“Just a moment,” said Aziraphale. He shifted, kicking his foot out, and pushed Crowley up until he was in a full sitting position. “Do things to me, Crowley. _Now_.” He attacked Crowley’s mouth again. Crowley’s head hit the wall, but he didn’t care now – God, no, not when he had a lapful of eager immunologist and the biggest erection he could ever remember popping while drunk. “Crowley, please!”

“I will,” Crowley gasped. “I’ll take care of you, angel.”

“Trousers off, then,” Aziraphale declared, and then he was fumbling clumsily at Crowley’s belt buckle. Crowley helped him pop it open and pulled down his zipper, then reached forward and found Aziraphale’s fly – a button fly, fucking _really?_ – to open it and pull down his trousers for him. “Oooh, yes.” Aziraphale leaned forward and attacked his mouth again.

Crowley pulled away with what he thought was an impressive display of self-control and forced his bleary eyes to focus on Aziraphale’s face. _There’s one of him,_ he reminded himself. _You keep seeing two and you’ll be in the psych ward for haloperidol._ “What d’you want?” Crowley asked. “Anything, angel. I want you.”

Aziraphale made a series of needy little whimpers that went right to Crowley’s cock, and pulled at his jeans with a needy little noise. “Too tight.” 

“Hold on.” Crowley exerted some effort to pull them off, along with his boots, and kneaded Aziraphale’s hips until he gasped. The flesh was soft and yielding under his fingertips, marked with depressed lines that signified the ghosts of old stretch marks. 

“Oh!” Aziraphale said. “Oh, oh, now…now, Crowley, here, I can’t wait!”

He yanked Crowley down by his scarf, and Crowley fell forward. His chin met Aziraphale’s shoulder with a jolt that shuddered pain down his spine, but he didn’t care, just let Aziraphale roll him over and adjust them until Aziraphale sat on Crowley’s pelvis, cock to cock. _Warm, warm, warm,_ Crowley’s sloshed brain sang, and he gave it an imaginary kick before the tune had a chance to get stuck in his head. He knew his drunk self. It was like…meta-drunkness or some shite. Okay, he wasn’t _that_ drunk. But even after only a bottle and a half, his brain tended to do weird things, since he never really gave it permission to do so when he was sober. 

“Ow,” he said, entirely unrelated to the below-the-waist sensations he was actually feeling. “Jesus… _ngh_ , fuck, fuck, Aziraphale!” Aziraphale rubbed his cock against the sensitive upper side of Crowley’s, and he briefly wondered if he was about to leave this mortal plane.

“Oo _oooh_ ,” Aziraphale moaned, long and decadent, and dug his fingers into Crowley’s thighs as he began to thrust. “Crowley,” and he dragged out his name, too, “yes, I want…I want…” He bent forward clumsily and kissed Crowley half on the mouth, half on the chin. “Touch?”

“Touch where?” said Crowley, but he didn’t wait to take Aziraphale’s cock in his hand and use his thumb to play with the foreskin. The backs of his knuckles brushed against his own erection and he bit his lip hard. Aziraphale looked at him, and – “Oh, fuck,” Crowley said, “ _yessss_ ,” as Aziraphale wrapped his hand around his cock. This was obviously a new cure for whiskey dick – fifty CCs[15] of Dr. Fell and his magic hands. He’d make a fortune. “Fuck me!”

“You mean pull you,” said Aziraphale, pedantic as always, even while slurring his words. “Do it to me, too.” He canted his hips forward and slid his cock in and out of Crowley’s grasp. The skin was so smooth that Crowley thought of hand lotion and other wonderful smells before he could stop himself. His drunk brain really needed to shut the hell up. “Like that,” Aziraphale gasped, and all other thoughts left Crowley’s head.

He closed his eyes against the harsh, glaring fluorescent lights above him and gave himself over to the awkward give-and-take between his hand and Aziraphale’s, his cock and Aziraphale’s. _I love you_ , he thought, and bit the insides of his cheeks so hard he tasted blood on both sides. “I’m coming,” he said instead, and surprised himself with the strength of his orgasm and the intensity of his cry in the nearly-silent hall.

Aziraphale devolved into incoherence and, recognizing the signs, Crowley tightened his hold and stroked faster as he played with the foreskin. The hand on his thigh squeezed until it hurt, and then Aziraphale was coming in hot pulses that quickly cooled on Crowley’s wrist.

Crowley leaned back, breathing hard, and took in Aziraphale’s flushed face and open mouth. “You okay?” he said. The words came out slurred. “You’re, uh. You…we…”

“Mmm,” Aziraphale said, sounding like the cat who got the cream. Or the immunology attending who got the chocolate mousse, as Crowley had observed in the hospital cafeteria only a month before. “Oh, that was _scrumptious_.”

“Uh, yeah,” Crowley said. The afterglow was quickly dissipating in favor of a clammy, uncomfortable feeling, like sitting in wet clothes. “You okay, Aziraphale? Not too drunk, are you?” A bottle and a half of wine had made _him_ rather more than tipsy, but Aziraphale had to outweigh him by a good fifteen kilos at least, and he had a higher body fat content. A long period of abstinence couldn’t outweigh simple biochemistry, or at least he hoped it didn’t. _Thanks, biochemistry_ , he thought. He would have clapped in appreciation if Wine Brain weren’t overruled by Science Brain.

Aziraphale shook his head. “No, not at all.” He moved clumsily to the side, dislodging a stray wine bottle, and reached for his jacket. “You’re –“ he hiccupped – “no, _we_ , we’re messy.” He pulled a travel packet of tissues out of his jacket and handed some to Crowley. Then he used the rest to mop up his belly and softened cock. Crowley mechanically did the same, unable to take his eyes off those hands and what they were touching. “Isn’t that better, my dear?”

Crowley’s heart did something funny and arrhythmic in his chest. “Loads better, thanks,” he said. He wanted to take Aziraphale’s face in his hands again and just _look_ at him, shower him with the kisses he deserved, give him the love he needed. But this was a one-time thing. It had to be. There was no way Aziraphale would want him without a little wine to lubricate things. 

“Can you get back to your flat on your own? I can get you a taxi.” He didn’t trust Aziraphale to navigate the underground in this state.

“Taxi,” Aziraphale repeated. “Yes, thank you.” He shrugged on his jacket and smiled at Crowley. It should have been fucking criminal to be able to turn someone into jelly like that. “Shall we…you know, out? That way?” He indicated the door with his thumb. “I should go sober up.” 

He was right, but Crowley’s heart fell all the same. _Idiot,_ he thought. What had he _done?_ He could almost feel the alcohol leaving his bloodstream as the realization hit him. Oh, _God._ He’d had sex with Aziraphale and Aziraphale was drunk, and it didn’t take a genius to know what that meant. Maybe _he_ could think while he was drunk, but Aziraphale almost certainly couldn’t. Otherwise he never would have wanted him. And that meant Crowley had invited him over and violated him. 

“Crowley?” 

“I’ve got cash,” he said faintly. “I’ll pay, don’t worry.”

Aziraphale donned his jacket and looked at him, wide-eyed. “Are you sure?”

“’Course.” Crowley fixed his own clothes, still feeling sticky underneath, and stood up before extending a hand to help Aziraphale up from the bed. “Come on, let’s get you home. You need to rest. Without me, I mean.” Possibly for the rest of his life. “Let’s hope you don’t have a hangover tomorrow.” 

“Shall,” Aziraphale said as they ambled down the hall. “It’s acetaldehyde[16], Crowley. Don’t you know that?” He said ‘acetaldehyde’ with the same intonation someone else might have used to say ‘funeral’ or ‘ten-car pile-up.’

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t need to tell me that.”

Outside, it was the kind of wet cold that went right through Crowley’s clothing and into his bones. Maybe Aziraphale was right - he needed to gain some weight. He pulled his coat around him with a shiver and stuck the fingers of his free hand into his mouth to whistle. A taxi appeared – as always – like magic. “Get my friend home,” he told the driver, and gave him the address. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“He better not yack on the leather,” said the cabbie, who was clearly skilled in the art of transporting drunks.

“He won’t.” Crowley dug a $100 note out of his wallet and handed it over. “Just – keep quiet, okay? He’s a doctor.”

“So’s everyone I take home drunk,” the cabbie said, annoyed. “Stop worryin’.”

Transportation arranged to his satisfaction, Crowley took the stairs back to his flat, where he barely managed to take his shoes off before he was asleep – face-down – on the bed that had always been far too big for his pathetic self.

* * *

_August 27, 2010_

It was a Friday. Crowley might have been coming off several days in the hospital, during which he’d slept in an on-call room because _fuck_ going home when there were people in cardiac intensive care who might cark it any moment, but he was aware of that much. Seven PM and his shift was well past done, and he was looking forward to getting home and sorting the fake Glee spoilers from the real ones. A guy had to have his brain candy, after all.

He yawned and stretched his tight, aching muscles as he walked through the atrium. “Hey,” he said, giving whoever was at the front desk a laconic wave. “TGIF, eh?”

The woman never got a chance to respond. The commotion at the door drew Crowley’s attention first. He knew that voice, and that meant he knew that _kid_ , and that meant –

“Someone help my son!” Harriet Dowling screamed, a child who could only be Warlock slung over her shoulder. Her husband, trailed by two men in dark suits and earpieces, was only a few steps behind her. “He won’t wake up!”

Fuck going off-shift. “Emergency case!” Crowley shouted, not caring about his accent. This was more important. “Bring a gurney, get him on it _now_!” Someone ran off in a flurry of motion, and he silently thanked whoever was out there for quick reflexes. “Mrs. Dowling, what’s wrong?” 

Harriet met his eyes. “Dr. Crowley? Oh, thank God – thank God it’s you. Warlock won’t wake up!” She jostled the boy, who whimpered softly and flopped as limply as a rag doll in her grasp, but otherwise didn’t respond. “He’s been sick, but I didn’t think…”

“Sick?” Crowley said. “Why aren’t you in emergency?” Two orderlies approached with a gurney and laid Warlock on it. “Move!” Crowley told them, and grabbed Warlock’s wrist. His pulse was thready and much too fast, but it was there. A press of his stethoscope to Warlock’s neck confirmed that his carotid pulses were much the same. 

Tears welled in Harriet’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks as she walked. “I don’t remember where it is,” she sobbed. “We didn’t use it last time. We had a referral.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Thaddeus asked, his tone demanding but his face just as frantically worried as his wife’s. “Dr. Crowley, what’s wrong with my son?”

“We’ll find out, okay?” Crowley said in his softest, most soothing voice. “We’re getting him admitted right now. I’ll page a couple of other doctors.”

Harriet wiped her eyes and hiccupped. “You will?” 

“I can’t let my favorite patient suffer from something mysterious, can I?” The ‘favorite’ bit was a lie, obviously, but he had years of experience comforting worried parents.

Harriet nodded, and Thaddeus cleared his throat, obviously doing that American man thing where you pretended you weren’t about to cry. “Do you know what’s wrong?” he said.

 _Vascular, infection,_ Crowley thought, differential diagnoses scrolling through his head. _This can’t be neoplastic. Drugs, maybe, inflammatory, definitely, who knows if it’s congenital **[17]**. _“I can’t say,” he said, and pushed a button on the wall. The doors to the emergency room flew open. “It might be a complication of what he had a few years ago, or something else. Hey, I need help!” He waved at the nearest person in scrubs. “Crowley, cardiology – got a kid here with a history of infectious endocarditis, showing possible cardiovascular symptoms. Tachycardic[18], got a fever, not responding well to stimuli.” 

“How old?”

“Three,” he said, at the same time as both of Warlock’s parents.

The nurse nodded. “Okay, take him back,” she said to the orderlies. “They’ll get him stabilized. I’ll admit him up here.” 

Crowley pulled out his pager as the Dowlings explained the situation, alerting the relevant departments. Thank whoever, this wasn’t a code blue. Nonetheless, the emergency department hadn’t objected to taking him back. Crowley liked to think his glare had something to do with it.

He loitered by the nurses’ station until the attending doctor showed up, falling into step next to her as she approached the Dowlings’ room. “Do I know you?” she asked.

“Anthony Crowley, cardiology,” he said. “I’ve treated this kid before. He has a history of endocarditis, possibly rheumatic fever. This doesn’t look like the same thing, but –“

“Potential complication?” she said.

“Could be. He’s listless, not responding to stimuli. Very tachycardic. His mother says he’s been sick, and he’s got erythema on his hands from what I can see.”

She stopped short, but only for a second. “Palms and soles?”

Crowley shrugged. “He’s got shoes on, but possibly. I’ve paged people from pediatrics and critical care.”

“Thank God, someone knows what they’re doing.” She paused outside the Dowlings’ door. “Mina Dagon. You should be able to find my pager number in the directory. I’ll page you when you’re needed.”

“I think this is an intensive care admissions case.”

Dr. Dagon nodded. “Possibly, but this is my department for now. I’ll see you later, Dr. Crowley.”

Crowley knew when he wasn’t wanted or needed. He busied himself by waiting for the different doctors he’d paged and filling them in on the situation, to varying degrees of gratitude (pediatrics) and clear annoyance that he’d gotten to the case first (intensivists, those fuckwads). A few long hours later, it was a relief to be requested in the Dowlings’ little room.

He knew it was a cliché, but Crowley couldn’t help thinking that Warlock looked so small and fragile lying in that bed, hooked up to an IV and multiple machines. His parents flanked him; Harriet had one of Warlock’s little hands in hers, while Thaddeus had his hands clenched in his lap. He looked like he wanted to get up and start pacing, and Crowley didn’t blame him, nor would he have been surprised to find out that Thaddeus had been doing just that for a while. 

“Good, you’re here,” said Dr. Dagon as he came in, and turned to the Dowlings. “You know Dr. Crowley already?” Harriet nodded. “We’ve looked at Warlock’s lab results, and in combination with his symptoms, we’ve diagnosed him with a condition called Kawasaki disease. It’s a syndrome that causes inflammation in the blood vessels, and we need to admit him.”

“Will he be okay?” Harriet asked. Her eyes were bloodshot, and dried tears had left tracks down her face.

“The steroids we’ve been giving him will help protect his heart,” said Dr. Dagon, indicating the IV, “but we’re also going to start him on intravenous gamma globulin[19] and aspirin. He’ll be admitted to the pediatric unit, not intensive care.”

“Thank God,” Thaddeus said, rubbing his eyes with the sleeve of his suit. One of the Secret Service men in the corner winced.

Crowley caught Dr. Dagon’s eye and made a slight gesture towards the Dowlings. She nodded. “Kawasaki disease is frightening,” he said, “but it’s treatable, and Warlock should start feeling better within about a day and a half.” He fought a yawn and successfully defeated it.

“What’s he getting steroids for this time?” Thaddeus asked.

“His prior history of heart problems makes him vulnerable to complications,” said Crowley. “The steroids will prevent them. Don’t worry, Mr. Dowling, we’re taking the best care of him that we possibly can.” A nurse came in with a sheaf of papers. “That would be your intake paperwork. They’ll get Warlock admitted for a full stay and then I’ll be up to help with his treatment, all right?” He glanced at Dr. Dagon. “Provided people want me on his case.”

“That’s fine,” she said. “You know his history. It’ll be easier with you there. Mr. and Mrs. Dowling, I’m going to pass you into the capable hands of my colleagues, and you’ll get more information once you’re upstairs in a private room. Feel free to ask if you have any questions.”

The next stretch of time was a blur – it could have been a few hours, it could have been half a day, but who the hell knew? At the end of it, after issuing enough medication orders to fell a horse and checking in on Warlock’s labs every hour as well as Warlock himself, Crowley found himself sitting in a hallway with his laptop on his knees.

He blearily rubbed his eyes and checked the time. God, three in the morning. It would be eight AM in England, and probably no one was at work, but at least this would be the first thing the hospital administrator saw when they got in – if the email address he’d found was current, at least.

_Dr Midgley –_

_I’m a physician in the cardiology department at the New York branch of St Judith’s. I have a young patient who has medical records at the Oxford branch and I would like to have the complete picture. Do you know of any way I could acquire those? My work telephone is 1-555-555-3266 and my mobile is 1-555-555-4355. I’m available to speak to whoever has the relevant information._

_Regards,_

_Anthony J. Crowley, MB BS_

Crowley pressed ‘send,’ put the computer on the floor, and rested his head against the wall. He’d been up on and off for at least…what was it, forty-eight hours? No, that was definitely an underestimate, because his head was throbbing like someone had pulled the skin taut over the bones, and that only ever happened if he either had a fever or was extremely sleep-deprived. The beds in the on-call room weren’t comfortable enough for true sleep, anyway.

“Crowley, what in the world are you doing on the floor?”

Crowley craned his neck, a motion that felt rather like trying to pull open a pressure-spring curtain rod, and focused his eyes with no small amount of effort. “Aziraphale,” he said. “What’re you doing here?”

“I should be asking you that question,” said Aziraphale. He was dressed in what looked like fuzzy pajama trousers, but with an argyle cardigan over them, probably for one of his strange aesthetic looks. Or maybe he was just cold, and Crowley’s middle-of-the-night brain was off on a tangent again. “You’re the one by the labs.”

“Hm?” Crowley squinted down the hall. “Oh. Well, what do you know about that.”

Aziraphale let out an exasperated-sounding sigh. “Come on, get up,” he said, proffering a hand.

“Ngh. Piss off.” Crowley let his head fall back against the cinderblock. “None of your business ‘f I fall asleep here.”

“Oh, Crowley, don’t be ridiculous.” Aziraphale took his right arm and hauled him to his feet. Crowley would never stop being surprised at how strong he was. Not that people of that shape couldn’t be strong – it was just how, well, _Aziraphale_ he was. The overall impression Crowley had every time he looked at him was of someone who couldn’t lift anything heavier than gardening tools. “You’ve got to eat something.”

Crowley steadied himself with a hand on the wall. “Not hungry.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips. “With all due respect, my dear fellow, you look like you’re about to lose consciousness at any minute.” He rummaged in his shirt and pulled out an energy bar, because _of course_ he had food in his clothes. “Eat this. You need it more than I do.”

“But it’s yours.”

“And you paid the last five times we went for an outing.” Aziraphale brandished the bar in the manner of a soldier with a sword. “Eat.”

Crowley took the energy bar with a shrug and unwrapped it. “Fine,” he said, and bit into it. Lemon – his favorite. “But you know these things are just full of sugar.”

“Oh, as if what you normally eat is any better,” said Aziraphale, rolling his eyes. “When you even eat. Have you lost more weight?”

“You’re a doctor, not my mother,” said Crowley. “And an energy bar isn’t a cure-all. This isn’t Star Trek.”

Aziraphale made a tiny motion with his shoulder, halfway to a shrug, and rubbed his chin. “Warlock Dowling again, is it?” he said quietly.

Crowley looked up mid-bite. “Mm?”

“Warlock. That’s why you’re so upset, isn’t it?”

“How’d you know?”

Aziraphale put his hand on Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley tried not to flinch. Moving him around was okay, that was one thing, but he didn’t deserve reassuring, affectionate touches.“Because I know _you_ , my dear,” he said. “Besides,” he added before Crowley had more than half a second to feel warm at the whole ‘dear’ thing, “it’s not hard to deduce what’s going on when the whole hospital’s atwitter about the American ambassador paying us a visit again.”

Crowley mashed his thumb and forefinger against his forehead, like that would do anything to calm the headache. Nervous tic, probably, but it was far too late – or early – to analyze his own weird body. “Kid’s got Kawasaki disease.”

“Oh, dear. Complications of the endocarditis?”

Crowley finished the last bite of the energy bar and held his finger up so Aziraphale would wait, shoving the wrapper in his pocket. “Probably,” he said, “but I’ve never seen sequelae like that.”

“There’s a first time for everything, I suppose,” said Aziraphale. “I wouldn’t flagellate yourself over it if I were you. You did everything you could, and he’s safe now, isn’t he?”

“Sure,” Crowley answered. “As safe as we could get him, anyway.” Modern medicine was great in some ways, but there wasn’t a fortune-telling option in the hospital software. “I’m trying to ring St. Judith’s in Oxford. For Warlock, you know.”

“That’s clever!” said Aziraphale, lighting up to exceed the shitty fluorescents in the hallway.

Crowley snorted. “It’s standard medical care, angel.”

“Yes, but not everyone would make that sort of effort.” Aziraphale linked his hands behind his back. “You should really get some sleep. You’ll be no use to the Dowlings or anybody else if you go another night without it.”

“Maybe,” Crowley said. The sudden glucose rush was making his head fuzzy, and he wasn’t sure if he was wired or tired. Either way, Aziraphale was right. He was a liability if he didn’t go home. “I’ll take the train back. You all right getting home?” Then a thought occurred to him. “Just what _are_ you doing here at three in the morning? You didn’t stay up all night for me, did you?”

“No, of course not. Laboratory work ran over again.” Aziraphale looked guiltily off into the distance. “Don’t tell anyone, please. Especially not Dr. Evangelatos. He doesn’t like it when I spend too much time in the laboratory.”

“Wait, what the _hell_?” Crowley said. “You’re a laboratory fellow. You’ve got an arrangement to split your time - he doesn’t bloody own you!” 

“I know,” Aziraphale said, his expression miserable. Where was his ebullient friend, who had been so excited about his acceptance to the fellowship that he’d called Crowley at midnight when the email came in? He’d kept Crowley so in the loop about every detail that Crowley almost felt like he’d taken the fellowship, too.

“Aziraphale…” Crowley wanted to put his hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder, but he didn’t dare. He hadn’t forgotten three years ago. “What’s going on?” 

Aziraphale’s face fell even more. “I’m so _tired_ ,” he said. “There’s so much writing to be done. So many experiments. And Dr. Evangelatos is still pressing me to see immunology patients, and I...my mind is too full. There’s so much going on, Crowley.” He pressed the back of his hand over his eyes. “I should quit.” 

“Hey, no,” Crowley told him, wishing more than ever that he could put his arm around Aziraphale and comfort him. But even if Aziraphale didn’t remember what a monster he was, the kind of monster who fucked a drunk friend, Crowley did. He barely had the right to touch Aziraphale at all, but maybe he could comfort him with his words. “Is there anything I can do? I can talk to Gabe.” 

“Good lord,” Aziraphale said with a watery sort of laugh. “I don’t think he would like that. And please don’t call him Gabe.” He sighed. “I’ve got to get my ducks in a row, that’s all. I mean, I _like_ seeing those interesting cases. And I suppose I do know the methodology well enough to please my attending.” 

Crowley nodded. “You don’t have to be on all the time, Aziraphale. You’re allowed to take a break, you know.” Fuck Gabe to whatever hell existed for stressing Aziraphale out like this, especially since Aziraphale didn’t even work for him anymore. 

“Mm. Maybe I should.” Aziraphale looked at him. “You’re right. I ought to be getting home myself. Shall I walk you to the tube station?” He held out his hand. 

Crowley didn’t take it, but he followed Aziraphale out anyway. 

* * *

_August 20, 2018_

Brian and Pepper were sword-fighting, and Wensleydale was playing with a set of scales he’d made out of twigs, and Adam didn’t feel well, otherwise he would have joined in. Elbows on his knees, he slumped in his seat and tried to ignore the weird hot feeling at the bottom of his throat. Dad said it was heartburn. Mum said he could still have a piece of his birthday cake because it wasn’t every day that he turned eleven, and their argument drove him out of the house. It was stupid when grown-ups fought.

The inside of his chest felt funny, like his heart was squeezing instead of beating, and his ears were ringing. “Can you guys be quiet?” he said. Why did he feel so cold? August was usually hot in Lower Tadfield. Pepper said it was because of global warming, but he felt like there was a cold rock in his belly under the heartburn.

Brian let his sword fall to his side. “Oi, you all right?” he asked. “You’re all sweaty.”

“Yes. I mean – I don’t know,” Adam said. He felt worse by the second. “I think I need to be sick.”

“Ew,” said Pepper, wrinkling her nose. “Don’t do it here.”

“I’ll try,” said Adam, and then he _was_ sick, falling out of the chair and curling up around his cold belly and burning heart as he emptied his stomach on the ground. “Hurts,” he moaned. It hurt too much to say anything else.

“What hurts, Adam? What is it?” Wensleydale’s voice was in his ear, and his hands patted Adam’s back.

“Every…everything.”

“Get his mum,” Pepper said, and then, “Brian, you’re the fastest, _go_! He’s really sick.”

Adam tried to roll over and fell onto his back instead. The sky spun over his head. “You’re going to be okay,” he heard Wensleydale say, but his eyes closed without his permission before he could ask how he knew that.

* * *

“It’s a heart attack,” Crowley said. “Bugger, shit, _fuck,_ I knew it!” He closed the window with Warlock’s lab results and picked up his phone, punching in numbers as fast as he could move his thumbs. “Warlock Dowling’s back and he’s having an acute MI[20]. Get him a stat cardiac cath[21] and put him on anticoagulants[22] if he’s not already, and for the love of God, keep me informed.” He sent the page and rubbed his hands together. “How the hell does a kid have such terrible luck?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” said Eric, the nurse on shift. He was new, but at least he was bright enough to reach over and pull up the medication orders section in the software. “Put in the meds you need and I’ll get them to him stat.”

 _Forget it’s Warlock,_ Crowley thought, and went through the necessary motions on autopilot. He’d dealt with a thousand heart attacks before; he could do this. Maybe not with an eleven-year-old, but a heart attack was a heart attack, wasn’t it? It had to be, or he would go completely mad.

The catheterization happened, just like he’d asked for. Warlock came through it, just like he’d thought he would. Crowley still found his hands shaking as he found the Dowlings in the waiting area outside cardiac intensive care. “He’s stable,” he said. Harriet sagged in obvious relief. “He’ll need close watching, but he’s all right for now.”

“How did he have a heart attack?” Thaddeus asked. He was a big man, but he was slumped in his seat, paler than Crowley had ever seen him. “He was okay – he had his birthday party and everything. There was cake. He was fine.” He let out his breath. “Is it the heart thing?”

“It’s some kind of heart thing,” Crowley said. “Since it’s a heart attack, that’s a given. As for your other questions, we don’t know. We can’t know.” He almost patted Thaddeus’s hand, but decided against it. He knew Thaddeus well enough by now to know that he might take offense. “You know better than I do how many tests he’s had at the Oxford hospital. No one’s found any abnormalities.”

“We can do more,” said Harriet, “can’t we?”

Crowley shook his head. “As I said, he’s stable, but he’s not nearly strong enough for more testing right now. I’m sorry, Mrs. Dowling – I know how difficult this must be for you both.”

“Damn right it’s difficult,” she said, but there was barely any heat behind the words. “God, I don’t know where we went wrong.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Crowley told her. “Things like this are rarely anyone’s fault.” He concentrated on maintaining eye contact. Anxiety he could deal with, but when parents started getting maudlin, he got itchy; it felt like he was intruding on the inside of their heads. “How long have you been out here?”

“Since they took him back,” Thaddeus said.

Crowley’s legs ached in sympathy for Thaddeus’s, crammed into that chair. “Okay. Would you be willing to go get yourselves something to eat? I’ll be paged if anything happens with Warlock, and I’ll keep him safe.”

The Dowlings looked at each other. “I’m not hungry,” Thaddeus said.

“We need coffee,” Harriet told him, and Crowley noted how dark the circles under her eyes were. “When can we visit him, Dr. Crowley?”

“It’s best to wait until tomorrow,” Crowley said. Harriet’s face fell. “I know you want to see him. I understand that. But it’s late, and he needs to rest and heal.”

They exchanged another one of those spousal looks that Crowley had always been vaguely envious of. “All right,” Thaddeus said. “We’ll go downstairs. Just make _sure_ he’s okay.”

Crowley tried not to think about the fact that Thaddeus Dowling probably weighed almost twice what he did. “I will. I promise.”

He waited for them to come back with coffee anyway; only then did he leave. Warlock and his parents deserved that much from him, even if he couldn’t prevent him from experiencing multiple cardiac events in only eleven fucking years.

His feet carried him aimlessly and without his knowledge, and he was surprised to find himself in the parking garage. “Stupid,” he said, and listened to the echo of his own voice. It wasn’t nearly time to leave yet, and even if it had been, he wasn’t going until he knew for sure that Warlock would be all right.

“Who’s stupid?”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley sighed. Aziraphale looked like a ray of sunshine in his yellow button-down shirt. “No one. Talking to myself.”

“Talking about yourself, I wager,” Aziraphale said. He came up and tapped Crowley’s elbow. “You know, I heard about Warlock Dowling, and I’d wager anything you’re blaming yourself.”

Crowley pulled away. He didn’t deserve Aziraphale’s sympathy – not now, not ever. “I’m the one who first treated him,” he said. “If I’d done better…”

His phone rang before he could finish the sentence spooling uncomfortably out of his mouth, and he pounced on it. “Hello?”

“It’s Midgley at St. Judith’s.” The voice was low and tinny, like buzzing flies. Crowley had talked to the voice’s owner twenty times by now, at least, and he didn’t think he would ever get used to it. “There’s a pediatric patient with a cardiac arrest who’s going to be sent to you soon. An eleven-year-old boy.”

“Yeah, we already got him,” Crowley said, mouthed ‘Midgley’ at Aziraphale, and stuck his index finger in his free ear. “We both know Warlock, Midgley, you haven’t got to use subterfuge with me.”

“Not the Dowling boy,” Midgley said. “Another one, just turned eleven. Showed up here with a heart attack and a petechial rash.”

Crowley frowned. “Wait a second, did you say rash? Didn’t Warlock have one –“

“Two years ago,” Midgley finished for him. _Lord of the Flies,_ Crowley thought sourly. That was how that horrible voice sounded. “This one is far worse. He’s been tested for everything. He’s stable, but as soon as he’s fit to travel, they’re sending him over to you. The parents are frightened.”

“Another eleven-year-old with a cardiac event,” Crowley said. “I – I can’t – are you _sure_?”

“I’m as serious as a heart attack,” said Midgley with no humor whatsoever. “I thought I would do you the courtesy of letting you know. Now I have to go.”

He blinked at the non-sequitur. “What –“ But the call had already ended.

There was another soft touch to his elbow, and Crowley jumped so hard he nearly hit the concrete wall. “Jesus fuck,” he said, “warn me before you do that!”

“Who’s got a cardiac event?” Aziraphale asked. “They do know Warlock’s here, don’t they?”

“No,” Crowley said, his voice coming out a ghost’s rasp. “An eleven-year-old in England with a severe petechial rash[23] and a heart attack.”

The color drained from Aziraphale’s face. “It’s not possible.”

“It’s happening,” said Crowley. The world was a house of cards, collapsing under him. “Another boy.”

“Another boy,” Aziraphale repeated, and his eyes – for once – were terrified.

* * *

[1] A mix of nitrous oxide and oxygen, AKA laughing gas. Used mostly in England. 

[2] Chest pain from blocked coronary arteries

[3] You don’t want to know. Trust me on this one.

[4] Weakening of the left ventricle of the heart, usually caused by stress.

[5] A staining method used to sort bacteria into one of two types, which informs treatment.

[6] Inflammation of the lining of the heart and/or its valves.

[7] A complication of untreated strep throat or scarlet fever, which can lead to lifelong heart problems.

[8] Inflammation of the stomach.

[9] A condition in which the patient produces almost none of a certain type of antibody important in fighting infections. Usually passed from a carrier mother to her son.

[10] Sensitivity to light.

[11] Tiny brown lines that look like splinters, indicative of the presence of blood. A hallmark for certain heart problems.

[12] Emergent heart catheterization – doctor speak for emergency unclogging of the coronary arteries.

[13] Inflammation of the brain tissue.

[14] The type of tissue that lines certain organ systems

[15] “cubic centimeters,” AKA milliliters.

[16] The first chemical that alcohol is metabolized into in the body, responsible for the majority of hangover symptoms.

[17] Crowley is using the so-called VINDICATED-P diagnostic method (running through an exhaustive list of causes), which is very thorough.

[18] Fast heart rate.

[19] Also known as immunoglobulin G – important in fighting infections and maintaining a normal immune system. Incidentally, also the antibody type missing in X-linked agammaglobulinemia.

[20] Heart attack – short for “acute myocardial infarction.”

[21] Same thing as an emergent cardiac catheterization.

[22] Medication to keep the blood from clotting.

[23] A flat rash that looks like tiny drops of blood on the skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Aziraphale and Crowley have sex after they've each had about a bottle and a half of wine. Crowley thinks it wasn't consensual and hates himself for it; it was very much consensual. 
> 
> I am godihatethisfreakingcat on Tumblr.


	2. reminds me of your smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Scientific?” Pulsifer cut in. “What you’re doing, Mrs. Nutter, is hardly scientific! And might I warn you that you tread on dangerous ground.”
> 
> “Warn me?” Agnes stood. “Warn me, Doctor Pulsifer? I already knew what you wanted to say to me when you convened this so-called meeting, and I’ll have none of it. I want no association with a hospital that treats me and my work like this.” She walked to the door, heels clacking against the hard floor, and paused with her hand on the knob. “Mark my words, you old fools, your hard-headedness will be this hospital’s undoing.”
> 
> (Sixty-two years ago, Agnes Nutter’s warnings foretold the woefully unprepared physicians who would come after her.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As before, medical terms are explained in endnotes. 
> 
> Thank you again to meinposhbastard for an excellent job beta-reading!
> 
> (Appropriately enough, I defended my dissertation in immunology yesterday. :D)

_November 2, 1956_

“Now, Mrs. Nutter…”

“ _Professor_ Nutter.”

John Pulsifer rolled his eyes. “Professor, then. You do realize that you’ve been called here to answer for wasting this hospital’s resources?”

Agnes Nutter, a woman who had lived through the Great War, the Spanish influenza, and the Second World War, had very little time for fools and had never looked as though she had any. “I don’t believe that investigation of an immune pathology can be defined as wasting anyone’s time, Doctor Pulsifer.”

“You realize, Professor, that you are speaking to the entire board of this hospital,” Pulsifer said. “Your impertinence doesn’t bode well for your chances.”

“My chances?”

“Your hypotheses on these so-called cardiac immune syndromes,” said the chairman of the board, “are specious at best and outlandish at worst.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I hardly think that extrapolating from the work of Kunkel through use of the scientific method –“

“Scientific?” Pulsifer cut in. “What you’re doing, _Mrs._ Nutter, is hardly scientific! And might I warn you that you tread on dangerous ground.”

“Warn me?” Agnes stood. “Warn me, Doctor Pulsifer? I already knew what you wanted to say to me when you convened this so-called meeting, and I’ll have none of it. I want no association with a hospital that treats me and my work like this.” She walked to the door, heels clacking against the hard floor, and paused with her hand on the knob. “Mark my words, you old fools, your hard-headedness will be this hospital’s undoing.”

After she left, Agnes Nutter never worked in the medical field again, and the board of the John Southworth Hospital congratulated themselves on having done away with a woman they never should have hired in the first place. It was her sex, obviously, that made her say such nonsense.

But within ten years, the hospital had closed its doors for the final time.

* * *

_March 16, 2018_

Anathema Device had inherited three important things from each half of her ancestry. From her father’s side, she had inherited her wavy hair, her striking eyes, and the mind that got her into medical school. From her mother’s side, she had inherited a manner of making people feel uncomfortable when she looked at them for too long and a habit of being more psychic than was good for her.

She had also inherited her mother’s stubbornness, a tendency that she demonstrated very well on this particular Friday.

“Mom, no – Mom. _Mom._ I’m telling you, there wasn’t a mistake.” She motioned furiously at a passing classmate to be quiet and stuck a finger in her free ear as she pressed her phone closer to her head. “I _chose_ St. Judith’s, okay? They were my first rank. And please stop saying I put down the wrong specialty in the application, because I didn’t.”

Her mother was about as difficult to convince of that as she had anticipated, which was to say that she almost missed the group photo because she had to spend five minutes convincing the elder Ms. Device (although she herself soon wouldn’t be a Ms. anymore, not after commencement) that there was nothing wrong with internal medicine and she wouldn’t be returning to California to specialize in dermatology.

At least, she thought with a sigh, she had experience in convincing her mother. Camila Device had put up enough of a fuss when Anathema decided to go to medical school in New York, where the family had lived before they moved back to Malibu her junior year, rather than continue her studies at Berkeley. In retrospect, the months that Anathema had spent talking her around had been good practice for what was to come.

Compared to the argument she’d had with her mother four years ago about what medical school she’d chosen, this was cake.

* * *

_August 31, 2018_

It was the fifth day of her second rotation[1], and things were already getting interesting. For one thing, Anathema was sure she hadn’t seen Secret Service agents during her time rounding on the general internal medicine ward. For another, no matter what narrative the media kept peddling, she’d never seen two kids with heart attacks in the same hospital before.

She yawned and flipped on the light in Warlock Dowling’s room, relieved not to see his bodyguards there. They barely talked, but she’d mentally nicknamed them Brawny and Snide anyway, because a girl had to be able to have some fun. “Wake up, Warlock. I have to check your vitals.”

Warlock groaned and curled up, pulling his pillow over his head, thankfully with the hand that didn’t have an IV. “Don’ wannit.”

“You’re getting it. Sorry, kid.” Anathema went to the little sink and washed her hands, then swabbed her stethoscope with an alcohol wipe. Her supervisors had been very clear about hygiene when she started in the CCU[2], and she didn’t want to be responsible for some poor cardiac patient getting sepsis. “I know, six AM pre-rounds are the worst.”

“Oh, man.” Warlock slid the pillow off and squinted at her, pouting. The pinpoint rash on his face, neck, and arms had faded since she’d checked in on him the day before, and he seemed a little livelier, too. “You’re not gonna stick me again, are you?”

“Your IV hasn’t come loose, so no. Sit up straight – you know the drill.” Warlock grumbled, but complied, and Anathema put her stethoscope on his chest. The murmur[3] she’d been told was typical for him was present, but there was nothing new. His lungs were clear, too, so he was holding stable. “How are you feeling? Any changes?”

He scowled. “No.”

“How are the meds treating you?” she asked. He huffed, and she wondered what she’d done wrong now. Was she too informal? In school, the instructors had gone over the instructions about being authoritative with patients until she thought they were burned into her brain, but maybe she’d slipped up. There was no attending here to yell at her, at least. “What? Was it something I said?”

“They think I’m stupid,” Warlock said, curling his lip. “They think I can’t hear anything. I know there’s another kid coming. He had a heart attack, too. I bet his wasn’t his parents’ fault.”

Anathema paused in the middle of checking his IV bag. “How was this your parents’ fault?”

“Bet I wouldn’t’ve had a heart attack if Mom let me have my birthday party in an escape room.” Warlock sagged back against his pillow, looking smaller and much more tired than he had a few moments before. “I wanted to stay in England. They made me come here so they could have _my_ birthday like _they_ wanted and show off to all their stupid friends.”

“An escape room sounds fun,” Anathema said, keeping her tone as neutral as she could. “So you heard something about another kid?”

Warlock sighed, heavy with the weariness of a kid who’d spent too much time in the hospital. “I’m not gonna tell anyone if you talk to me about him. You won’t get in trouble. I’m just bored, okay? I’m not allowed to have my screens and Mom and Dad aren’t here.”

Anathema glanced at the door anyway before she let herself reveal anything. “You’re right,” she said. “There’s another boy your age who’s here to get his heart looked at. I think he had a heart attack the same day you did, actually.” She’d have to look in her books to see if that was a sign of anything. Science had rarely steered her wrong, but witchcraft was her first love.

“I know _that_ ,” Warlock said. “I saw when they brought him in. He didn’t look good.” His voice didn’t quaver, but she could see how frightened his eyes were. People could rarely hide that, in Anathema’s experience. “You’ll probably have to be his doctor today, too. I think people can see him now. They said he won’t die.”

“That’s good.”

“Anathema?” Warlock reached for her hand, and she let him take it. “I mean, Dr. Device.”

Anathema squeezed his hand. “You can use my name.”

He nodded. “Anathema, I won’t die, right? I’m not gonna get worse and crash like him?”

 _Don’t make promises to patients,_ she heard the head of Internal Medicine say in her head. Dr. Evangelatos had spent a lot of time talking about that during their orientation breakfast. _If you can’t keep it, you’ll be the one responsible._ “We’ll all do our best to make sure that doesn’t happen,” she said. “You’re getting the best care here, Warlock. Who told you that boy is crashing?”

“The scary nurse.”

“Say no more,” Anathema said. She didn’t even know the guy’s name, but she knew to avoid him. “No one should be that interested in the contents of people’s bedpans. But you didn’t hear it from me.”

Warlock made the ‘okay’ sign at her and sank back a little more against the bed. “No problem.”

“Good. Now I should get going. There are other people to look in on.” She checked his pulse and oxygen saturation[4], noted down everything on the room’s computer, and went to the door. “Get some more sleep while you can.”

She and the rest of the medical team woke Warlock up again for rounds an hour later, but much to her relief, he didn’t say anything about their conversation or the other boy with the heart attack. Then her other patients drove Warlock and the mystery patient out of her head for a while, especially the guy with stage three heart failure and a mysterious case of pitting edema[5] that didn’t correspond to his existing issues.

By the time everything else was taken care of and Adam Young popped up in her patient list, it was past 3 PM and she was already exhausted. But a doctor’s work was never done – she’d learned that even in med school, especially that horrible surgery rotation. She took a moment to sanitize her hands at Adam’s door before she went in. This kid would be even more vulnerable to infection than Warlock, if what she’d been told about his state was true.

A single glance at his bed confirmed it. Adam had obviously grown up healthy; he didn’t have Warlock’s pinched face, or the weedy look that came from months spent in hospitals. But he was obviously far sicker, ghost-pale where his face wasn’t covered by the tube down his throat. “Hey,” Anathema said quietly, unwilling to disturb either the boy or the air of gravitas around him. “How’s he doing?”

The doctor placing the EKG[6] leads on Adam’s chest looked up. She recognized him as an attending intensivist[7], but she couldn’t remember his name – all she knew was that he wasn’t Dr. Crowley, who was a cardiologist anyway. “Dr. Device, right?” he said. “I need you to go down to Radiology and see what the status is on Adam’s X-rays. We took him down two hours ago and the images haven’t shown up yet.”

That was weird. X-rays usually took fifteen minutes to get loaded into the patient records, maybe half an hour. “Do you know why there’s a delay?”

“No,” said the doctor, obviously frustrated. “That would be why I’m placing more leads instead of _looking at the scans_. I can’t get a straight answer out of them. Go down and figure it out.”

Anathema bristled. _Do it yourself_ , she wanted to say, but this was the life of an intern. She’d probably be bossing them around herself someday. “I’ll get as much information as I can,” she said, and went to find the elevator.

Radiology was a maze, and it wasn’t one she’d ever been exposed to. She cursed herself for not doing an elective in it as she went from hallway to hallway, finding plenty of doctors and nurses on their way to some procedure or other, but no one who could help her.

When she finally found someone with information, she was boiling with a mix of relief, anger, and sheer frustration that she couldn’t – and didn’t want to – keep from spilling out. “What the hell?” she snarled. “What do you mean, the system’s down?”

“I mean it’s not uploading things,” said the technician, who had foolishly introduced himself as Newton Pulsifer. Anathema knew how to use information, and by everything she held dear, she would damn well use this piece if she needed to. “I’m so sorry – the system went down earlier, and when we got it back up, it wouldn’t let us –“

“I’m not interested in excuses,” she said. Fuck being treated like everyone’s grunt, intern or not. “We have sick people upstairs. Sick _kids_. Do you want to have to explain to your boss why a little boy died of pulmonary edema[8] or something because his doctors didn’t have his X-ray and didn’t know he had it?”

The color drained out of Newton Pulsifer’s face. “I’ll, er. I’ll see what I can do.”

“You do that,” said Anathema, and then – childish as she knew it was – couldn’t resist adding, “Or else.” 

* * *

“Immunology laboratories, St. Judith’s Hospital,” Aziraphale said into the phone. “Er, no. Not the cancer children. That’s St. Jude’s.”

The agitated man on the other end didn’t seem to like that at all. A concerned parent, Aziraphale guessed. “If you’ll give me a moment to turn on my computer,” he said, “I’ll gladly direct you to –“ He blinked as the man suggested something very anatomically incorrect. “There’s no need for that kind of language.”

He sighed as the dial tone sounded in his ear. One would think that laboratory work meant dealing with fewer rude people inclined to hang up abruptly, but that was a hospital for you. If you didn’t expect the unexpected, then you had a very bad time indeed.

Footsteps sounded, and he looked up in time to place the feeling of dread with the snappy tread of familiar – and expensive – shoes. “Dr. Evangelatos,” he said, standing up from his desk. “Dr. Ebadi. What brings you by today?”

“Azzy Fell!” said Gabriel Evangelatos (or, as Crowley liked to call him, _Gabe_ ), flashing him a smile full of far too many blinding-white teeth. “Sandalphon and I heard great things about your last case. We wanted to come by and congratulate you.”

“Oh. Erm, which case would that be?” Aziraphale laced his hands behind his back and tried not to let his hackles rise. He did loathe being called Azzy, and he suspected Gabriel knew it, but he hadn’t gotten this far by antagonizing the man who let him keep his job after the debacle in 2001.

“The one with the leukocytes[9],” said Sandalphon, and grinned broadly.

Although it probably wasn’t fair of him, Aziraphale had to keep himself from grimacing at the sight of his gold tooth. It was a bit garish; if that were Sandalphon’s style, they wouldn’t stand out so much, but his suit was khaki drab. “Ah, leukocyte adhesion deficiency[10],” he said. “Congratulate me? I assume the patient is all right?”

Gabriel waved a hand. “Of course, of course. The patient’s fine. Her parents were so grateful, they just donated a million dollars to the hospital.” The wattage of his smile somehow increased, although Aziraphale wouldn’t have thought it possible. “Keep up the good work!”

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said. He lifted himself nervously on the balls of his feet for a moment, then returned to a neutral position. Good Lord, he _had_ to work on that tic. “I appreciate you coming by. Hospital donations are always a good thing.”

“They sure are,” Gabriel replied. “And you’re still funded – nice job, Aziraphale! What are you working on in the lab right now?”

“Oh, er. Do you mean my current project?”

Gabriel shrugged. “I can find that out any time. What are you working on right now? You know. Now.”

“You can’t have work,” Sandalphon put in, “without _being_ at work.”

Aziraphale blinked, but schooled his face into a more neutral expression when Gabriel started chortling. “I suppose that’s true.”

“Sandalphon!” Gabriel exclaimed. “That’s very good. So, Aziraphale…what’ve you got?”

Aziraphale looked at the dark screen of his computer monitor. “Nothing very interesting right here, I’m afraid,” he said. Why, _why_ had the lab technician chosen today as a personal day? Having him as a buffer might have made things less awkward. “I thought perhaps I’d like to assay samples from the two pediatric cardiovascular patients. The Young and Dowling boys,” he clarified, seeing Gabriel’s brows furrow. “I’m sure there’s a pattern to their illnesses. If I tried to find some sort of treatment – maybe pro bono work –“

Gabriel tilted his head. “Why in the world would you want to do _that?_ ”

“Because…because we should,” Aziraphale said, his voice trailing off as Gabriel held his gaze with that confused expression. “It’s an important scientific endeavor.”

“That’s cardiology,” Gabriel said, waving a hand. “If I recall correctly, Aziraphale, your specialty is _immunology_. When you’re not holed up in here, that is.” Aziraphale couldn’t look away from that penetrating stare. “The Dowlings don’t need pro bono.”

“No, but the Youngs do,” Aziraphale said. “They haven’t got the American insurance, and their savings are low. News, er…it gets around.”

Gabriel folded his arms. “Aziraphale,” he said, “keep your eyes on the prize and your mind on the _right_ boy. I don’t think I have to elaborate any further than that.”

 _Right_ boy? Gabriel couldn’t possibly mean – there was no way he’d just said – “I don’t follow,” said Aziraphale faintly.

“Azzy Fell,” said Sandalphon, and grinned toothily at him.

“That’s it,” said Gabriel, and made finger guns at Sandalphon. “Just remember that, Aziraphale. Remember how that name came up.” There was a hint of something darker lurking under his smile. “As-he-fell from grace at this hospital.”

Aziraphale tried not to wince too visibly as Gabriel and Sandalphon both – mercifully – took their leave.

* * *

“I can recommend some hostels to stay at,” Crowley said. “Won’t be the most private lodgings, but there are some inexpensive places that are just a tube ride away from the hospital. Although they call it the subway here,” he said, and watched the Youngs’ faces as his jovial comment, all too obviously, fell flat. “Sorry. Anyway.” He ran through his ever-present mental list of places he sent the poor, the tired, the uninsured yearning to breathe free – basically all the concerned parents, children, and spouses Emma Lazarus had anticipated in that stupid poem. “I can write down some addresses for you.”

Deirdre Young drew in a little hiss through her teeth and looked at her husband. “Hostels…even that’s rather a lot if we’re staying a long time,” she said quietly. “We’re not in the best financial situation, Dr. Crowley.” Her breath caught, and she briefly pressed the back of her hand against her eyes. “And if Adam – if he doesn’t get better –“

“We can’t,” said Arthur, whose eyes were just as red as his wife’s. “I mean, we will. We’ll drain our savings for him if we must. He’s our boy.” He closed his eyes and breathed hard. “But what about when we run out?”

“I understand,” Crowley said, rummaging in his lab coat for a pen and paper. “Okay, look.” He wrote quickly, praying that his doctor scribble would be legible this time. It wasn’t always. “These are the cheapest ones I know. If you go to this one –“ he pointed with his pen “ – you need to ask for Ned and tell him Anthony sent you. Should be able to stay for fifteen dollars a night. I can’t make any promises that there won’t be mold in the showers, but…”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Deirdre. “Any – anything. I’m so sorry we weren’t more helpful.”

 _Helpful_? Their kid got flown in with damage from a sodding heart attack and they were apologizing to _him_? This was one of the times Crowley was glad he didn’t live in England anymore. “I don’t follow,” he said, clearing his throat. “You were as helpful as you could be.”

“The family history,” said Deirdre. “He’s adopted, you see. They say heart disease runs in families.” She licked her lips. “Could this be genetic, and we didn’t know it?”

“Even if that were the case,” Crowley told her, “you’ve already done everything you could. Things like this are really hard to anticipate.”

“Is it something we did?” she asked. “His older sister’s not got anything like this. She’s away at university.”

Crowley shook his head. “Highly unlikely,” he said. The possibility wasn’t zero, and he wasn’t about to tell lies, even to a family as worried as this. “Diseases like these tend to result from a mix of genetic and environmental factors.” There it was again – _genetic._ Warlock and Adam definitely weren’t related, but weird conditions popped up in multiple families all the time. A condition that functioned like rheumatic fever over and over couldn’t be so hard to identify. It was just a matter of identification and testing, and –

Testing. In a laboratory. Crowley knew someone with those skills, and he studied – _Antibodies,_ he thought, and wouldn’t have been surprised to see a lightbulb flashing on and off above his head. The rash, the heart attacks, the endocarditis, there _had_ to be some connection here. Aziraphale would know, and he was only half a hospital away.

“Dr. Crowley? Is everything all right?”

Crowley refocused and adjusted his sunglasses, just for something to do with his hands. “Ah, yeah, sorry,” he said, directing this at Arthur Young and his raised eyebrows. “Just a bit lost in my own head with all this. I’m trying to figure out the best treatment plan for Adam.”

“And the other boy,” said Deirdre. “There’s another one here, isn’t there?”

“I can’t really talk about that,” Crowley replied. “I’m sorry. I know you must be scared.” He’d spent the whole day apologizing either to the Dowlings or the Youngs, as well as all the other patients he had, and there was probably no end in sight. But then, he was hardly more important than sick kids. It was all about perspective. “Is there anything else I can do for you before I finish rounding?”

They both shook their heads. “Just don’t let him die,” Deirdre said. “You can’t let him die.”

Crowley’s skin suddenly felt hot and far too tight, ill-fitting. This was the part he hated about his job – the moment when they asked him for a promise, a guarantee that he could keep the worst at bay, and he couldn’t follow through for the sake of honesty. “I’ll try my best,” he said. “I swear I will.”

Going by their nods, they knew why he couldn’t say it any more emphatically. That, at least, was a comfort.

Writing patient notes was normally a comfort. Today, it was torture. Visions of antibodies ran through his head, like the weirdest sort of sugarplums in that Christmas poem – he had to get to Aziraphale or he would go mad. And if he did, there would be hell to pay.

When he finally had the last of his paperwork done, he checked the time. 3 PM – Aziraphale would be in the lab, and no one would begrudge Crowley leaving a little early if he was finished rounding on patients and ordering all their tests. Not with how many times he’d stayed past the length of his shift during his time here, anyway.

“I’ll be over in the labs,” he told Eric as he passed the nurses’ station. “I’ve got my pager on if anyone needs me.” And with that, he scarpered. Wouldn’t have been surprised if he burned streaks into the floor with how fast he was going, either. It was just lucky for him and everyone else that he didn’t encounter anyone on his journey down the elevator.

He’d never been so glad to see the _A. Fell, MB BS_ nameplate on the door to Aziraphale’s lab, even though it had to have been a hundred times that he’d come down here. Well, fifty at least. He wasn’t fond of exaggeration. “Aziraphale?” he called out, pushing the door open. “Are you still here?”

“Back here,” said Aziraphale. Crowley followed the faint sound of his voice through a maze of black-topped counters to his office. “Not that I’m not glad to see you,” Aziraphale added as Crowley approached, “but is there something wrong?”

“Yes. No. I mean – not exactly, but…yeah.” Crowley scratched the back of his neck and wished fervently that he knew how to talk like a normal fucking person. Aziraphale wasn’t even looking at him, focused as he was on his computer, and he still managed to make him feel squirmy. “Aziraphale, what the boys have – what if it’s genetic?”

“They’re not related,” said Aziraphale distractedly, and tapped his fingers lightly on the keyboard. “Sorry, I’m trying to figure out something here.”

Crowley shook his head, even though he knew Aziraphale wouldn’t see it. “Not _genetic_ genetic, I mean congenital. Autoimmune. There’s got to be something causing this pattern of cardiovascular… _stuff_ in kids that young. It’s come and gone all Warlock’s life – couldn’t it be new-onset for Adam?”

Now Aziraphale did look up. He slowly turned, rubbing both fists against his eyes like a tired child. How long had he been at this? “You think so, too?”

 _Thank God,_ Crowley thought, forgoing his agnosticism for long enough to sag in relief. “If we’ve both figured it out, there has to be something there,” he said. “What do you think it is?”

“I’m not sure,” Aziraphale said, with the fretful look he always wore when a problem he very much wanted to solve had eluded him. He also wore it when the pop-up café in the lobby was out of his favorite flavor of scone. “I would say it’s aortitis, maybe some sort of vasculitis, but then why the rash?”

“We’ll have to figure it out,” said Crowley. “Adam’s parents don’t have anything about his medical history. He’s adopted.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. “Oh, dear. Not that he’s adopted, I mean. The lack of medical history. Would the Oxford St. Judith’s have anything? That’s where they took him when he had his first episode, isn’t it? You’d at least be able to have that.”

Crowley tried to think, felt his brain shorting out, and sputtered a few times. “That’s…fucking brilliant,” he said, pulling his capacities back online. “They have Warlock’s records, too. We can compare. Hell, I’ve never gotten a full paper copy of Warlock’s records, just confirmation over the phone. I – hang on.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and started typing. It was only eight in the evening in England. Midgley would still be around to respond; Midgley never slept, or at least never seemed to. “For a case,” he said, “it wouldn’t be violating any privacy laws, right?”

“Crowley, what are you doing?”

“Getting information,” Crowley said, and pressed send. “Aziraphale, you’re brilliant.”

Aziraphale blushed. “You’ve said,” he answered. “I’m not quite sure what makes you think so.”

“Oh, come on.” Crowley rubbed his arm so he wouldn’t put a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “I didn’t come up with the idea of contacting Oxford, and I _treat_ both those kids. You’ve got an amazing brain, angel.”

“I’m not. Truly, I’m not,” Aziraphale insisted, the flush on his cheeks spreading up to the tips of his ears. “You give me too much credit, Crowley. I’m not treating patients all day. My mind’s got a bit more time to come up with…er, things to do.” He frowned. “For that matter, how have you never gotten Warlock’s full records? Shouldn’t you have asked for them years ago?” 

Crowley made a fist and hit himself on the thigh hard enough to _really_ hurt. “I know,” he said. “I’m an idiot. The Dowlings would have had to request access themselves, and nobody ever had time, and then there were other patients and it all just…” 

“Slipped through the cracks?” Aziraphale suggested. “I can’t imagine your clandestine communication with Midgley facilitated faxing everything over.” 

Crowley sighed. “Okay, I deserve that,” he said. “Yeah. Slipped through the cracks is a good way to put it. Then you add in two countries’ worth of privacy laws…” 

“I understand,” Aziraphale said. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me.” 

“Yeah, well – hang on,” Crowley said, taking his phone back out as it buzzed. A long email from Midgley. How did that bastard type so fast? As for what it contained – “Holy _fucking_ shit,” he said, staring helplessly at the screen.

Aziraphale got up and put a hand on his arm, warm through his sleeve. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Crowley blinked and tried not to lean into the touch. “Midgley hasn’t got the full set of records to send, but someone else might. This woman named Mary Hodges in records. Not Midgley’s department – I don’t know how, but…” He pulled away and ran his hands through his hair. “How much longer have you got on your shift?”

“I’m in the lab today,” Aziraphale said. His eyes were cautious, but not guarded. “My time is flexible. Why do you ask?”

“Mary Hodges is still entering data at the hospital tonight,” Crowley told him. “Midgley can get us on a video conference if we do it within an hour. Do you want to come with me? I think we both need to get on this case.” God, with Aziraphale’s immunological knowledge and some medical records to provide a pattern, maybe they could actually _fix_ this. Maybe there was a way that two kids wouldn’t have to die of fucking heart attacks.

Aziraphale laced his fingers together. “I – goodness, Crowley, that’s certainly quick.” He sucked on his lower lip. “I suppose that would be…a good idea. Very creative. Er, what about HIPAA[11]?”

“If we’re being honest, my contact with Midgley’s been flirting with a violation for years,” Crowley said, leaning on one hip. “I think it falls under the purview of getting medical information from other professionals or something. Look, if you’re worried, you don’t have to be involved.” Maybe this was a bad idea. Aziraphale didn’t deserve to get pulled into whatever trouble Crowley got himself into. “I won’t be upset if you back out.”

“I don’t _want_ to back out,” Aziraphale said. He set his jaw, and his round chin trembled. “I’m as invested in these children as you are, Crowley.” He reached for his coat, which hung from a peg on the wall. “Whose flat, then? Mine’s a bit cluttered with books.”

“I don’t mind going to mine,” Crowley said. He checked his phone and pager, just in case a notification had slipped through, and satisfied himself that the department wouldn’t collapse if he left. “Let’s take the train.”

* * *

Who played paintball on the subway? The fucking _train_. Crowley looked at the red splotch on his shirt and bared his teeth at the people brandishing weapons. “You’re adults,” he snapped. “Learn to read a room, for fuck’s sake.”

“Sorry, man,” said the leader, who had a _tie_ tied around his head and didn’t look sorry at all. “Team-building!” He pumped his fist, and the rest of his group did the same thing and whooped.

Crowley retreated to the end of the car with Aziraphale to avoid any further ambushes. “Arseholes,” he muttered. “You all right?”

“ _I_ am, but look at the state of this coat,” Aziraphale lamented, pointing to a blue mark on his shoulder. “It’s vintage! Probably older than I am, and now I’ll never get this stain out.”

The train pulled to a stop. _Thank fuck,_ Crowley thought. “It’s my station,” he said. “I’ll hand-wash your coat in my flat. I know how to take care of old fabrics.” Aziraphale wasn’t the only one with a passion for vintage clothes, although Crowley’s tastes ran more towards grunge and punk than _The Great Gatsby_ and 1950s garden parties.

“Are you sure?” Aziraphale said, looking at him with those plaintive eyes of his. “I wouldn’t want to make you go to any trouble.”

“It’s no trouble, angel. Come on, we’ll miss our stop.” He beckoned, and Aziraphale followed him out the doors just before they closed. “Do you want anything to eat?”

“What have you got?” Aziraphale asked, falling into step beside him as they made their way up the stairs and out onto the street. It was disgustingly hot, and Crowley wondered how the hell Aziraphale functioned in all those layers. “If you’re planning to offer me day-old coffee like you did last time, then you’d best come up with another plan.”

Crowley tried to remember what was in his fridge. The results of his search weren’t promising. “If I don’t have anything, I’ll order takeaway,” he said. “Whatever you want, my treat. Least I can do.” Aziraphale hadn’t signed up for stained clothing and an empty stomach. “We’re not far.”

“Yes, Crowley, I know where your flat is,” Aziraphale said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve been there before.”

Crowley turned his head so Aziraphale wouldn’t see him blush. “Yeah, well. You don’t have to remind me.” He really didn’t. He’d lost count of the number of times they’d met up in the past sixteen years, but every memory of Aziraphale visiting his flat would, he suspected, light up the neurons of his hippocampus for the rest of his life.

He was happy to let Aziraphale chatter at him the entire lift ride to his flat, which was one of the penthouse units. “Leukocyte adhesion deficiency?” he said, fumbling out his key and unlocking the door. “Is that the one where the umbilical cord doesn’t fall off for ages?”

“That’s the one,” Aziraphale said. “You _have_ been listening – oh, bless, air conditioning.” He sighed happily and turned in a slow circle. “Mine has been broken for two days. The landlord says he’ll fix it, but he’s not had time yet.”

“Angel,” Crowley said, “you have way too much patience with people who don’t deserve it. Coat?” He held out a hand. “I’ll start washing it.”

“Mm. Yes, thank you.” Aziraphale slipped out of his coat and made a face. “Oh, those little…they got my shirt!” He looked pleadingly at Crowley. “Would it be too much trouble for you to wash that as well? If it’s too sweaty, I apologize, but…”

Crowley was a sucker for that expression, and he suspected he always would be. “Give it here,” he said. “Or you can take it off in my room and find something to wear in – oh, um.” Aziraphale had already opened his waistcoat and shirt and skinned out of both, revealing his torso clad in an undershirt so thin that Crowley didn’t have to imagine a thing. “…rrrright. You, uh.” He gestured in what he hoped was the direction of his bedroom. “I’ve got some loose T-shirts in there. Just in the, uh, built-ins. They’ll probably fit you.” His face was on fire. “I’ll start washing this in the kitchen.”

“The kitchen?”

“Bigger sink,” Crowley said. _And you won’t see my face._ If he embarrassed himself in front of Aziraphale again, then he might as well swan dive into the Hudson River. “Meet me in the living room in a few. I’ll start the Skype call then.”

In the kitchen, he filled the sink with water as cold as the faucet would produce, threw in a few handfuls of ice cubes, and submerged his arms up to the elbows. The shock made him shiver, but it also did its job and made him shrink where it counted. “Fuck,” he muttered, dumping Aziraphale’s shirt in the sink and using a fork to scrape all the paint he could off his coat shoulder. They were both still warm from Aziraphale’s body, and smelled dizzyingly like him. _You don’t deserve him,_ he reminded his traitorous body.

After he’d sponged the paint off Aziraphale’s coat with some gentle detergent and soaked it off his shirt, Crowley hung the former over a chair to dry and threw the latter in the dryer. “Aziraphale?” he said as he went into the living room. “You find anything?”

“Yes, thank you, I did,” Aziraphale said. And – oh, God, he had. The charcoal-gray T-shirt he’d chosen was loose on Crowley, but just tight enough on Aziraphale that Crowley could see the curves of his belly and chest. “You were so kind to offer. Did the paint come off?”

“Um. Yes. I mean, uh, yeah, there won’t be any stains.” Crowley turned on his monitor so he wouldn’t have to look at Aziraphale and start blushing all over again. “I’ll bring your stuff back to the hospital tomorrow.”

Aziraphale pulled up a chair. “That’s very kind of you, my dear,” he said.

Crowley pulled out his mobile and typed in the Skype name that Midgley had given him. Who the fuck called themselves _drosophila.melanogaster_? Some kind of weird entomology enthusiast? Well, he would find out. “Nervous?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Aziraphale said. “Why would I be?”

Midgley accepted his friend request, and Crowley clicked to open a video call. “No reason.”

The video screen popped up and flickered to life, revealing a room as badly-lit as the more cryptlike parts of the hospital. B. Midgley turned out to be a small, sour-looking person of indeterminate sex who, Crowley suspected, rather liked it that way. Their oversized black clothes nearly drowned them. “Anthony Crowley,” Midgley said. “You’re punctual.” The buzz of their voice was even more annoying than it had been over the phone. “Is this your friend?”

“Dr. Aziraphale Fell,” Crowley said, indicating Aziraphale with an awkward hand gesture that he thought he’d probably meant to be a suave wave. “Immunology, laboratory medicine. I really appreciate you arranging this, Dr. Midgley.”

“Just Midgley,” they said. “I’ve got Miss Hodges here. She’ll be down in a minute. Don’t take too long.” They got up, leaving nothing but a blank concrete-block wall to stare at.

Aziraphale patted Crowley’s shoulder. “It was wonderful of you to take the initiative on this, Crowley,” he said. “You know, deep down, I’ve always said you really are a nice –“

“Shut it,” Crowley snarled. Aziraphale’s bright eyes and flushed cheeks, his almost beatific expression when they did _that_ on Crowley’s bed, filled his mind’s eye for the thousandth time since it happened. Nice, indeed - what kind of monster had sex with a drunk man? Didn’t matter if he was soused, too; consent was consent. “Me, nice? Tell the whole blessed world, why don’t you?”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” someone said in an unfamiliar voice. Crowley blinked and focused on the screen. “Sorry to break up your argument. I’m Mary Hodges.”

“Lovely to meet you,” Aziraphale said with a smile.

Crowley nodded his agreement. “Great to meet you,” he said. Mary Hodges had a sleek hairstyle that he wished he could get away with, but he knew that if he tried, he’d just look like he was wearing a helmet. “So we’ve got two kids here with strange cardiac symptoms. One of them has been coming through the Oxford St. Judith’s for years now, and the other passed through about a week ago.”

“Do you have their names?” she asked.

“Adam Young and Warlock Dowling,” Aziraphale interjected.

“Warlock Dowling?” Mary Hodges briefly closed her eyes and smiled. “Oh, what a sweet little boy. I ran into him a few times. A bit cranky, but that comes with being sick, doesn’t it?”

 _Oh, thank fuck._ “So you remember him,” Crowley said. She nodded. “Okay, amazing! Is there any way we could get his full records? Adam’s records are all from this past month, so no problem there, I’m guessing. I’ve just never gotten a full copy of Warlock’s. Especially the earlier stuff – before 2013 or so?”

“No.”

_What?_

“What?” Aziraphale said.

“I’m so sorry,” she said with a rueful look. “I’m afraid we were a bit late in digitizing our records. There was a fire in the room where we kept the paper files, and it took out almost all the pediatrics files before we could stop it.”

Well, that was it. They were fucked, at least where finding a _pattern_ in this madness was concerned. Hastur would probably laugh his arse off if he knew; he always said he liked dramatic irony. Crowley bit down hard on his lower lip to avoid blaspheming so hard that Mary Hodges would probably end the call. “We do appreciate your taking the time to meet with us,” he heard Aziraphale say. “I don’t suppose there’s any information you do have?”

“Not unless the records were copied over,” Mary told them.

No luck there. Everything in Warlock’s medical history that hadn’t actually occurred at the New York St. Judith’s was patchy at best, no matter who he talked to over the years; no one bothered getting the full records instead of just orally detailing what happened in England. Why, why, _why_ hadn’t Crowley insisted on phoning for them? Looked like he had, yet again, shot himself in the foot, and failed his patients on top of that. “They weren’t,” he said. “ _Damn_ it. Not you,” he said as Mary’s eyes widened. “Sorry. I’m angry at myself, not you. I was _ssstupid_.” Fucking speech impediment. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to regress even more and start carrying around a ratty blanket again.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” said Mary. “If not, I’d like to ring off. I’m sorry, but it’s rather late.”

“That’s quite all right,” Aziraphale said. “We understand the vagaries of your schedule. Do have a good night.”

“Yeah – I mean yes,” Crowley added, trying and failing to keep the croak out of his voice, “thank you. This was…it means a lot. Um. If there’s anything we can do for you…”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Have a good night, Dr. Crowley, Dr. Fell.” The screen went dark.

Crowley rested his elbows on the table and held his heavy head in his hands. “Great,” he said. “Fantastic.” Their one opportunity to get some actual information and he’d blown it with a lack of foresight. “Aziraphale, I’m sorry. I dragged you away for this.” And potentially gotten his coat ruined. He was really racking up the wrongdoings today.

He felt Aziraphale rest a hand lightly on his upper back. “You couldn’t have known,” Aziraphale said. “Don’t flagellate yourself over this, Crowley.”

Crowley snorted, because if he couldn’t laugh at himself, then he would just start crying. “I don’t think the Flagellants would consider this a worthy cause,” he said, and drew himself back up with some difficulty. “Did you want me to get you back to work? I can pay for a cab.”

“It’s all right,” said Aziraphale. “To be honest, I’ve been in a bit of a slump anyway. A break might do me good.” He gave Crowley’s back one last pat before removing his hand. “What shall we do with our free afternoon? Do you want to have a drink – oh, or we could watch telly! Is this Shark Week?”

“That was a month ago, I think,” Crowley said, hiding a smile as he pretended to straighten his sunglasses. Maybe he should have taken them off for the call, but oh, well – if Midgley thought he was just an antisocial bastard, then so much the better. “I’ll order takeaway. Anything you want.”

Aziraphale beamed at him. Crowley had the brief urge to bask in the glow of his smile, like a snake worshipping its favorite sunbeam on a warm rock. “That sounds lovely, my dear.”

* * *

_September 1, 2018_

“He’s been getting so many medicines,” Deirdre Young said, “but he’s still not back to himself. Is that normal?”

Anathema held up a finger and set her stethoscope on Adam’s chest again. He had a soft systolic murmur, but it was no worse than it had been yesterday. Poor kid – he barely even responded to the cold metal on his bare skin. “It depends,” she said, unhooking the earpieces from her ears. “A heart attack is a big deal in someone his age, of course. Um…” They had definitely not gone over this in clinical rotations. “He’s getting the best treatment that we can give him, I promise.”

“That’s what all the doctors say,” said Deirdre with a sigh, looking down at her hands. “No one’s been able to _help_.”

Anathema wished she could reach out and touch Deirdre’s hand, or maybe her knee, but the last thing she wanted was to be labeled a soft doctor – much less a soft _female_ doctor, a non-white one at that – two months into her residency. She’d never survive that. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I really am.”

Deirdre let out a long, shuddery breath. “He’s not my little boy right now,” she said. “Even when he’s awake, he’s just so ill. Maybe it’s selfish, but I – I want him back.” She ran the back of her hand under her eyes. “Arthur is…he’s beside himself, of course, but he doesn’t feel it the same way I do. That’s funny, isn’t it? Since neither of us carried him? We should have the same feelings.”

“Well, every parent is different,” Anathema told her. “Where _is_ Mr. Young?”

“In the canteen, getting coffee,” said Deirdre. “Bless him, he was up all night with me when I couldn’t sleep. I don’t blame him for that.”

Beside Anathema, Adam stirred and moaned quietly. “Mummy?” he said, his voice scratchy. “Mum?”

“Darling,” said Deirdre, her expression melting into something sweet and intimate. Anathema almost wished she could duck out. “How do you feel?”

“ _Nnnn_.” Adam turned his head weakly, pressing his cheek into the pillow. He met Anathema’s eyes and a line appeared between his brows. “Who’re you?”

“I’m Dr. Device,” Anathema said, taking his wrist to check his pulse – still fast, but not in the danger zone. “You’ve been pretty sick, Adam. You’re in a hospital in New York. Do you remember taking a plane to America?”

Adam slowly shook his head. “I’m…sick?”

“There’s something wrong with your heart, love,” Deirdre said. Tears glimmered in her eyes. “You have to be watched for a bit, just so the doctors can find out what’s wrong. We’ll take you home as soon as we can.”

“Oh.” He blinked, then let his eyes fall shut. “I’m tired.”

“That’s okay,” Anathema told him. “Sleep if you want to. You’ve had a hard time.” It was Saturday, so he’d already been rounded on by the interns and medical students. At least patients could get some sleep on the weekends. “Actually, you should get some sleep while you can. There’ll be people coming in to check you at some point.”

Adam made a tiny motion that was probably a nod. “Device,” he said. “’S’a…funny name.”

“ _Adam_ ,” said Deirdre.

“No, he’s right,” Anathema replied, smiling. “It’s actually an English name. It used to be pronounced _Deh-_ viss, but things changed over a few hundred years. I’m not a machine, in case you were worried.” She gave him a final once-over: still pale, still tired. He had to have lost at least five pounds since he got sick, if she went by the shadows in his cheeks. “I’m sure your mom will tell your dad I said hi when he gets back.”

Deirdre nodded. “Of course. Go see your other patients, Dr. Device.”

Anathema left the room, pulling her stethoscope off her neck as she went, and headed towards the nurses’ station to find a computer and write up Adam’s patient note. This was _not_ the specialty for her. No wonder critical care doctors had such a high rate of burnout, if this was what they dealt with every day –

Someone collided with her hard, and she cried out, dropping her stethoscope as she banged into the wall and fell onto the floor.

Dizziness overwhelmed her for a second or two, and then the pain hit. “ _Motherfucker_ ,” she said through gritted teeth, and thought she might be sick from the sharp pain in her head. “Who did that?”

“Oh, no – I’m so terribly sorry!” Strong hands pulled her up, and she found herself facing a doctor she’d never seen. He was a few inches taller than her, with hair so pale it had to be dyed, and his round face was creased with worry. She thought he looked familiar, but her head hurt too much to remember where from. “We didn’t mean to hit you, my dear. Are you all right?” He gently squeezed her right hand in both of his. “No bones broken, I think.”

“She hit _us_ ,” said Dr. Crowley. Great, she’d run into an attending. Literally. “Device, right? Are you okay?”

“Ow,” said Anathema, pressing her palm against her throbbing forehead. “I think I hit my head.” Not enough to get her out of work, of course. Nothing got you out of work here, short of sudden death. And even then, they’d probably revive you and make you work the rest of your shift. “Who are…I mean, have we met?”

“Dr. Fell,” the blond man said, holding out a hand. Anathema shook it; better to be polite. “I’m a – a colleague of Dr. Crowley’s. I’m dreadfully sorry we bumped you. Do we need to speak with your superior? I’ll explain this was my fault. I’m not often here, and I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

Anathema shook her head slowly, feeling too dazed to do it any faster. “No, you don’t need to do that,” she said. “I just need to sit down soon. Need to write a patient note anyway.”

Dr. Crowley looked from her to Dr. Fell, squinting. “If you’re okay,” he said, “then we’d best move on,” directing this to Dr. Fell. “We’ve got to look at some patients on this floor, angel, and –“ His eyes widened and he clamped his mouth shut, shaking his head.

 _Angel?_ Did the mysterious Dr. Crowley actually have a personal life? Anathema had guessed he wasn’t exactly as straight as a ruler the first time she saw him, but wow. This was pretty bold. “I’d better go,” she said. “Nice to meet you, Dr. Fell.” Suddenly it came to her: the Christmas party ten or so years ago, when she was shadowing. He’d called Dr. Fell ‘angel’ then, too.

Both men went a little red. Well, the pain in her head told her they deserved it, so she resolved not to feel too bad. “Yes,” said Dr. Fell. “Right. Now…Warlock Dowling?”

“I’ll show you,” said Dr. Crowley, and they disappeared down the hall.

Anathema rubbed the tender top of her head and concentrated on not wobbling as she went to the nurses’ station. Adam’s record didn’t have any new orders in it; at least he seemed to be holding relatively stable, at least for the last day or two. She updated his file with her latest information and tapped the desk with her fingernails. “Adam Young,” she muttered. “Anything else?”

“Have you checked his bedpan?”

Anathema’s mouth fell open. “I – I’m sorry, _what?_ ”

“His bedpan,” said the speaker, a man in nurses’ scrubs who had to be at least sixty-five. With a sinking feeling, she matched him to the snippets she'd heard floating out of patient's rooms. “You can tell everything about a patient from their bedpan, lass. No one realizes it, but it’s true.” He nodded sagely. “An intern, I see. Better start checkin’ bedpans. You’ll get all the information that way. That and the nipples.”

 _The fuck?_ she thought. First two kids with a heart attack, now the ward's creepy nurse had moved on to targeting _her_ with his crackpot ideas. Things were getting way too weird today. “Um.” She bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from laughing. “He’s catheterized[12].”

His face fell. “That’s too bad.”

“Shadwell!” Tracy, the ward’s head nurse, burst out from behind her. Anathema’s shoulders slumped with relief. Thank goodness, some _sanity_ in this place. “What have I said about bothering the residents? Get back to checking vitals.” She came over and slapped Shadwell on the arm. 

“But I’m only telling her –“

“What did I say?” Tracy demanded. Her earrings twinkled as she cocked her head and put her hands on her hips. “They’re still waiting for a morphine drip down the hall with the triple bypass. Get to it.”

Shadwell – which was, incidentally, a perfect name for him in Anathema’s opinion – wisely beat it down the hall. Anathema let out her breath. “Thanks,” she said. “I think you saved me from an out-of-body experience.”

“If he weren’t so good at what he does,” said Tracy with a sigh, “I’d make sure he was sacked. I’m still working on him, don’t you worry.” She patted Anathema’s shoulder. “Before you ask, no, I have no idea what goes on in his head.”

“I wasn’t asking,” Anathema said.

“Good. Sometimes it’s best not to dig too deeply into these things.” Tracy smiled and shook her head. “He’s a bit cracked, but he’s a fine – what’s Dr. Fell doing here?”

Anathema looked up. Dr. Fell and Dr. Crowley were back, walking at the same fast clip they’d left at. “He’s with Dr. Crowley,” she said. “They’re friends, right? They’re looking at the pediatric MI patients.”

“He’s an _immunologist_ ,” said Tracy. “There’s no need for him today. Dr. Fell!” she shouted, and waved. “The patients have already been rounded on. You can go back to the lab.”

“I’m looking for a possible immunological mechanism,” said Dr. Fell in a tone so prim that it practically had its pinkie out. “Now, is this it?” He ducked his head into Adam’s room, then snapped back, the color draining from his face.

Deirdre Young appeared at the door, her arms crossed. “Are you another doctor?”

Dr. Fell gulped. “Sorry,” he said, “right room number,” and took off. Dr. Crowley only hesitated half a second before running headlong after him.

Anathema looked from Deirdre to Tracy and back. Whatever was going on, neither of them had any better idea than she did. “Attendings?” she ventured.

“They’re strange, dear,” said Tracy. “Now I think it’s time you went back to work, don’t you?”

* * *

[1] Internal medicine residents rotate in different subspecialties around the hospital.

[2] Coronary care unit, where people with serious heart problems are taken care of

[3] Heart murmurs, which usually result from issues with the valves separating the heart chambers, can result from endocarditis, congenital disease, and many other factors.

[4] Percentage of oxygen in the blood

[5] Swelling, typically of the legs, with deep dents. Typical of right-sided heart failure.

[6] Also called an ECG, short for electrocardiogram. Measures heart activity in up to 12 different places on the chest, and is used to monitor heart health

[7] Critical care physician

[8] Fluid in the lungs.

[9] White blood cells

[10] A congenital problem where white blood cells don’t adhere to blood vessels and tissues as they should. Results in immune deficiencies and skin issues, such as delayed separation of the umbilical cord.

[11] Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, detailing rules and consequences about privacy, release, and security of medical records.

[12] A urinary catheter prevents patients in critical condition from having to get up and go to the bathroom.


	3. at least we both were lying when we said that we were clear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale and Crowley's history is revealed, and scientific progress is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to note that this chapter was written before recent events. If discussions of inflammatory disease similar to that caused by the current pandemic are triggering to you, please don't read the chapter. Your mental health is more important.

_August 11, 2004_

“That’s plague.”

The internist fumbled his stethoscope. “Sorry, what?”

“Plague,” Crowley repeated. “Bubonic plague, the Great Mortality, killed at least a third of Europe and half of China, likes to live in flea guts.”

“I know what the plague is!” snapped the internist who Crowley thought might be named…fuck, they’d been introduced a few years ago, he should have known this. At any rate, he was bug-eyed and angry-looking, like something out of Milton. _Mephistopheles,_ Crowley thought, feeling his lips quiver with the effort of not smiling. “This is almost 100% the flu.”

“No, it isn’t.” Crowley leaned against the door frame. “It’s August, for one thing.”

Mephistopheles frowned at him. “Viral encephalitis at most, then,” he said. “I do know how to make a differential diagnosis. Who the hell are you, anyway?” One of the residents huddled by the wall let out a nervous titter, which only seemed to piss him off more.

“Anthony Crowley, cardiology, not that it matters,” Crowley said. “I’m about to save your arse. Second thing, this guy was on holiday in bumfuck nowhere, Texas. Talked about petting prairie dogs. Now it’s two weeks later and he’s come in with fever, severe abdominal pain, and altered mental state, and have you even _looked_ at those lymph nodes?” They were sticking out of the patient’s neck like the bolts on Frankenstein’s monster. Crowley could only assume that the man was still asleep because he’d passed out from sheer pain. “Do you know how to recognize a pattern?”

“Those could be symptoms of just about anything. I _told_ you, we have a differential!”

“Have you even looked at him?” Crowley asked. “Or are you just – for God’s sake.” He squirted out some hand sanitizer from the wall dispenser and rubbed his hands together as he walked briskly towards the patient. “Pay attention, trainees. Sir?” He waved a hand in front of the patient’s face; the man cracked open an eye and groaned. “I need to check under your arms for something. Is that okay?”

The man made another pained sound and licked his dry lips. Then, almost too slowly to catch, he nodded.

Crowley let out his breath. Mental status was intact. That reduced the chances that this had spread into the brain, thank fuck for small favors. “Right,” he said, undoing the patient’s gown. “Like this. It looks like he’s favoring his right side, so I’ll check that one first.” He slipped the sleeve off the patient’s shoulder and lifted his arm up all the way. “Axillary nodes[1] –“ And there it was, a swelling nearly as big as his fist.

It took everything Crowley had not to drop the patient’s arm and run. If he were an infectious disease specialist, sure, this would be the case of a lifetime. But he was a cardiologist, and he had two post-bypass patients who needed him to, well, _not die_ before he sent them home. “Streptomycin,” he said, clearing his throat to wet it. “Now. And tetracycline prophylaxis[2] and quarantine for anyone who’s come into contact with him.”

“You…” Mephistopheles’s eyes bulged. “You…he has…”

“ _Yersinia pestis_ ,” Crowley said. “You can send out for blood cultures, but I’m 99.9% sure that it’ll come back positive. Anything else is just an error.” What was the isolation protocol for plague? He wasn’t sure this hospital even had one. It had a stupidly high biosafety level, he knew that much. “Look. Draw blood and everything. I’ll go alert everyone. You don’t mind if I put myself on this case, do you?”

“I think you have to,” said Mephistopheles faintly.

“Good.” It would be better if there was a paper trail. “I’m gonna go find…someone.” Bloody hell, who _was_ he going to find? It would be a long walk to –

Oh, fuck, he knew who he had to find. Crowley gritted his teeth. “I need to go find Dr. Evangelatos,” he said. “He’ll be able to initiate protocol, if we have one.” He sanitized his hands one more time and folded his arms over his chest as he left to start down the hallway. Right, he needed to touch as few people as possible and avoid contaminating anything. There would be quarantine in his future, no doubt, at least until blood cultures came back or the patient was on treatment. Or someone died.

He was rounding the corner to the departmental offices when he came face-to-face with what looked like a walking stack of books. On second thought… “Dr. Fell?” he said.

“Oh!” Aziraphale Fell’s face peeked out from what looked to be the latest edition of _Physician’s Desk Reference._ “Dr. Crowley, it’s good to see you again. Are you lost? This isn’t the cardiology ward.”

“Not lost,” Crowley said, “just looking for our boss.” Much as he hated to call him that. “There’s a – a case of something nasty.” He stepped back a few paces from Fell – despite the conversations they’d had at departmental happy hour, he didn’t quite feel comfortable calling the guy by his first name – and squeezed his torso a little tighter. “I want to get some kind of isolation protocol in place. How about you?”

Fell looked at his books as if he’d just remembered he had them. “Dr. Michaels said my books were taking up _too much space_ in the communal area,” he said with a disdainful sniff. “I told her…well, it doesn’t matter what I said.” His eyes narrowed. “Case of something nasty? What is it, exactly?”

“Uh.” Crowley took a few more hopping steps in the direction of Evangelatos’s office. This was worse than his childhood games of The Floor Is Lava. “I, _ngh_ , I don’t think I can tell…” Those eyes were boring into him with laser precision. “Plague,” he muttered, staring at the floor. “But don’t tell anyone! I’m trying not to touch anything. ‘S’like being at the beach in bare feet.”

“Good Lord!” Aziraphale jumped back, and quite frankly, Crowley didn’t blame him. The pile of books wobbled dangerously. “How on Earth did you find _that?_ ”

“Wasn’t too hard once I got the patient’s history,” Crowley said. “Yeah, I’d better get out of here. I don’t want anyone to get infected.” Logic told him the chances of him having picked anything up were slim to none, much less enough to infect anyone else, but he wasn’t Spock.

Fell’s mouth dropped open. “You diagnosed the plague from the _patient history_? But that’s marvelous!” Crowley got the feeling that if he weren’t holding five thousand books, he would have clapped his hands in glee, like a cartoon character come to life. “Oh, dear. I’m holding you back, aren’t I? Go talk to Gabriel!” He inched a bit farther back. “I don’t want to be rude, but…”

“You don’t want the plague,” Crowley finished. “Um, I…see you later, yeah?” He jerked his head towards the offices. “Got things to do. People to see. You know how it is.”

“Of course,” Fell said. “Go on. I’ll try to find you soon. Once you’re un-quarantined, of course.”

The smile that he put on Crowley’s face came right off when he had to deal with the smarmy fucker otherwise known as Dr. Gabriel “Call me Dr. E!” Evangelatos, and he didn’t much like having to take a week off work. But even more than the looks of shock and awe on people’s faces when he passed, the memory of Dr. Fell’s expression – and his promise to find him – made it all worth the trouble.

* * *

_October 31, 2006_

“Are we being cliché?” Crowley asked, pulling the door open to let Hastur and Ligur through. “Drinking in the bar by the hospital? I think this is a constant plot point on Grey’s Anatomy.”

Ligur turned and gave him a suspicious look. “What’s that?”

Crowley sighed. “Never mind.” Hastur and Ligur rarely left the hospital, as far as he could tell; of course they didn’t know anything about television programs. The surgical slides never got processed faster when anyone else was on shift, though, so there was that. “What’s your drink?” he asked, leading them to a table near the back. “I’m buying.”

Hastur flagged down a server. “Amaretto sour,” he said when she arrived. “And a thing of beer nuts. I’m hungry.”

“Red wine, whatever you recommend,” Crowley said. “I’m not picky. Ligur, what about you?”

Ligur picked up the paper menu and scrutinized it. “Strongbow,” he said. “And – what’s poutine?”

“It’s a Canadian thing,” Hastur told him. “Chips and gravy and cheese. ‘S’good.”

“Right, I’ll have that, then,” Ligur said. “Easy on the cheese.”

The server nodded and wrote in her notebook. “I’ll have that out to you as soon as I can, gentlemen,” she said, and pointed to Ligur with her pen. “I like your Halloween costume! What is it?”

Ligur patted the Beanie Baby on his head and stared at her. “Chameleon.”

“Oh. I thought it was a brain slug – you know, from Futurama.”

“What’s that?” said Hastur.

“Television program,” Crowley interjected. “You wouldn’t – okay, maybe you _would_ like it. Anyway…” He shrugged apologetically at the server. “Better let you get back to everyone else.” Once she’d left, he turned to Ligur. “Out of curiosity, what’s with the costume?”

Ligur snorted. “I like chameleons. Don’t have to have a better reason than that, Mr. Fancy Cardiologist. They change colors when they’re in a mood. Bet you wish you could do that.”

“If I could control it, you bet your arse I would,” Crowley said. Bad enough having hair like a stop sign; he had the stereotypical blush to go along with it, too. If his face was spattered with freckles, he’d have a trifecta, but thankfully most of his above-the-neck marks had faded as he grew.

Their drinks arrived, and Crowley took a big gulp, relishing the rich taste of his wine. He swirled it around the glass and nodded at the viscosity. “Check this out,” he said. “It’s got good legs.”

Hastur popped a beer nut in his mouth. “Just means it’s got loads of sugar. You’re gonna get diabetes or something.”

“Not from one glass,” Crowley said, rolling his eyes. “And that’s not how you get diabetes.”

The server returned with Ligur’s poutine. Ligur nodded in acknowledgment and smiled, picking up his fork. “Looks good,” he said. “Why haven’t I heard of this stuff before?”

“You’ve never been to Canada, that’s why,” Hastur told him. “Looks like it’s popular. That bloke over there’s got some, just with more cheese.” He pointed across the bar, revealing a man sitting alone with a much larger platter of poutine than Ligur had. “I think he’s excited about it.”

Crowley gave the man a quick look, then a longer one. “Yeah, I bet he is,” he said. “I know him. That’s Dr. Fell. Aziraphale!” he called, waving.

Aziraphale looked up; his face registered surprise, then softened into a smile so sweet that something stirred in the pit of Crowley’s stomach. “ _Crowley!_ ” he exclaimed. “It’s so good to see you!” To Crowley’s delight, he got up and brought over his food without even being asked. “And who are these gentlemen?” he asked as he sat down in the fourth chair at their table.

“My friends, Ligur Adebayo and Hastur, who still hasn’t told me his first name,” said Crowley, indicating each man in turn. “They’re pathologists. Guys, this is Aziraphale Fell. He’s an immunologist, and, uh. He’s my friend, too.” It was, he realized, the first time he’d worked up the gonads to introduce Aziraphale that way; the thought made heat rise in his cheeks.

Aziraphale beamed. “Charmed! And might I say, I love your costume.”

Ligur lifted his glass. “Cheers. I’m a chameleon.”

“Yes, I surmised,” Aziraphale said. “I do love chameleons. All sorts of reptiles, really, especially snakes. They’re so dreadfully misunderstood, but they’re part of many cultures’ creation myths. Did you know that?”

Hastur glanced at Ligur, blinking in a gobsmacked sort of way. “Didn’t,” he said. “You want snakes, talk to Crowley here. He looks like one.” He snickered. “Crowley, if you want to know my name so bad, just go in my file or something.”

“Yeah, because that’s just as much fun as teasing you,” Crowley said. “Aziraphale, do you want me to pay for your food?”

“Certainly not!” Aziraphale exclaimed. “On the contrary, I’ll get your drink if you’d like.” He waved at the server. “One check, please. It’s Halloween. Let’s be a bit festive.” 

Crowley couldn’t decide if he wanted to put his head in his hands or grab Aziraphale and kiss him silly, but those warring desires were nothing new. He could handle them. “You really don’t have to, an – _Aziraphale_.” Hastur and Ligur would never let him hear the end of it if he called someone ‘angel’ in front of them, and by extension, neither would the rest of the hospital.

“But I want to.” Aziraphale pouted, and Crowley felt his brain melt and drip out his ears. “You wouldn’t deny me that, would you? On Halloween?”

Crowley sighed, trying to make it sound reluctant. “Sure,” he said. “Just because it’s Halloween. Next time, I’m getting it.”

“Of course, my, uh - my friend,” Aziraphale said. “That’s more than fair.”

They stayed at the table a while longer; Crowley was sure they talked about a lot of things, but looking back, he couldn’t remember a single subject. He just remembered the way Aziraphale moved his hands as he talked, and how he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off those perfectly-manicured fingers. The corners of Aziraphale’s eyes crinkled every time he smiled, and Crowley felt powerless to do anything but stare.

He would have gladly stayed there all night, but as he should have predicted, his pager went off right when Aziraphale was getting into some story or other. “Gotta go,” he said, scanning the message and standing up as he stowed his pager back in his jacket. “Emergency catheterization. Sorry, I wish I could stay.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Aziraphale said. He sounded regretful, but that could have been Crowley’s hopeful imagination coming back to bite him again. “I suppose I’ll see you the next time we meet, or at work.”

“Either works.” Crowley shrugged on his jacket. “Remember, I still owe you for tonight. I’ve heard there’s a sweets place opening up in the Lower East Side. Pancakes or crepes or something.”

Aziraphale’s face lit up. “Ooh, I love sweets!”

“Yeah, I know.” Crowley hid a smile in his collar. “See you later.”

He was never going to hear the end of this. Still worth it.

* * *

_November 8, 2008_

Aziraphale was letting him carry the conversation, and that alone would have been cause for concern, but the way he kept absently tapping his fingernails on the glass table cinched it. “Are you okay, angel?” Crowley asked. “You remembered to get your flu shot this year, right?”

Aziraphale sighed, a big, breathy thing that came up from the very center of him. All right, something was going on. “It’s not that,” he said. “Crowley…your flat is lovely.”

Crowley blinked and looked around. The living room was spare, with a lot of windows, just like he preferred. Aziraphale had complimented him on the place before, but it had always seemed perfunctory; Crowley knew they had different tastes. “Thanks,” he said. “That’s why you’re upset? Have I made you feel bad about it?” His chest suddenly felt hot with guilt. “Aziraphale, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to brag.”

“No, no, you haven’t done anything wrong!” Aziraphale exclaimed, and put his hand over Crowley’s. Crowley looked away and curled his fingers, wanting so badly to jerk his hand away. But Aziraphale would be offended and hurt if he did that, and he’d hurt him enough last year at that fucking party. “You’ve never been awful about it. Truly, you haven’t. It’s about…well.” His fingers tensed over Crowley’s. “You know I planned to buy my flat.”

“Planned?” Crowley said. “Wait – past tense? _Aziraphale_. You told me it was the best decision you ever made. What the hell happened?” And then the horrible thought hit him. “Do you have cancer or something? Is this a pay-for-medical-costs thing? Because you know I’ll –“

“Crowley!” Aziraphale squeezed his hand. “Goodness, no, I’m not sick. Please don’t worry, my dear. I’m so terribly sorry I frightened you.”

Crowley let out his breath as his heart rate slowly normalized, lessening the pounding in his head. “Jesus, you scared me. So why aren’t you buying that flat? You’ve told me a thousand times how much you love that bookshop.”

“Yes, and the pastry smell,” Aziraphale said. He gave Crowley’s hand one last squeeze before withdrawing. “The laboratory medicine fellowship I was excited about is opening up next year. Crowley…I’m going to apply.”

Crowley sat back as the pieces fell into place. “You’d be getting a fellow’s salary,” he said. “It’s a pay cut. That’s why you can’t buy the flat.” Aziraphale nodded. “But you were almost there!”

“This is more important,” Aziraphale said, and took a sip of his tea. “Do you have any idea what I could do with this sort of knowledge? The hospital’s got a training grant built in for whomever they accept. I mean, all this is contingent on my even being accepted.” His anxiety-tilted eyebrows sent a plea to Crowley to understand.

“It’ll be you,” Crowley said. “It will, angel. If you apply, you’ll get the position. It’s not a matter of ‘if you get,’ it’s ‘when you get.’”

Aziraphale blushed. “Oh,” he half-whispered, “oh, thank you. But if that’s true, yes, it’s a pay cut.”

Crowley took a gulp of his iced coffee. “Thought your landlord was gung-ho to sell you the place,” he said. “You sure he’s all right with you renting, still? He won’t sell it out from under you?”

“No, I spoke with him.” Aziraphale drummed his fingers on the table again. “Remember, Crowley,” he said soothingly, “renting a property is often a better investment than selling one. He’s been getting rent from me for more than six years.”

“Yeah, and what’s another ten, right?” Crowley retorted. “Aziraphale, this is going to eat up a year’s worth of your savings. It’ll take you ages to save back up. That’s assuming your landlord’s even willing to sell to you again once you’ve got the down payment.”

Aziraphale scowled; the expression looked out of place on him. “Since when are you so worried about my savings?”

“Since I started worrying about _you_ ,” Crowley said. “You know me, angel. Once I start, I can’t stop.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to put your worry aside for a moment in favor of mine,” said Aziraphale tartly. “I need that research funding, Crowley. The things I want to research take money, and I know I could earn the hospital more. Especially now that immunology and a few others have taken a hit in pro bono funding –“

“Wait, they’ve taken a hit in _what?_ ” Crowley blurted out. “Pro bono, are you serious?”

Aziraphale’s cheeks hollowed, and Crowley could tell he was chewing on the insides. “Yes,” he said, looking down at the table. “Gabriel told me a few months ago. Of course _your_ department isn’t having anything cut,” he said with a touch of bitterness. “Not that I would want it to be, but…you see why I’m champing at the bit to take this fellowship. I’ve already got outlines for a few grant proposals written out.”

“Cut the funding,” Crowley said, slowly shaking his head. “Fucking hell. Does Gabe know who that’ll hit first? Kids. You can’t kill kids!”

“I’m sure it won’t come to that,” said Aziraphale, who looked as nauseated as Crowley felt. “No one is letting any kids die.”

“Gabe’s my boss as much as he is yours, angel,” Crowley said, even though admitting it made him want to throw up. Those blinding-white teeth had sporadically haunted his nightmares for the past seven years, and Gabriel’s personality wasn’t so much squeaky-clean as _bleached_ – all to hide the prick underneath, apparently. “Knew it. Of course he’d do this. Who takes funds from people with immune problems?”

“Well, it’s not as though these are people in immediate danger,” Aziraphale answered. “This doesn’t come from Gabriel, Crowley. It’s a hospital-wide issue. We’ve got to trust that the system will take care of itself eventually.”

Crowley snorted. “Take care of itself?”

“Gabriel told me,” said Aziraphale, “that this is a preliminary measure. Cutting costs now means that it won’t have to happen again later.”

“How kind,” Crowley deadpanned.

“Oh, Crowley, don’t be sarcastic.”

Crowley’s hand tightened around his cup. “Forgive me for having a soul, angel. Unlike whoever cut the funding.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale muttered, taking another drink of tea, “you’re right. Of course you’re…” His nostrils flared as he breathed out hard. “We just have to give the money a chance to make itself back. That means I apply for the fellowship, get a research grant, and actually make a difference. Better than I can now.” His eyes were pleading. “Surely you understand.”

“I do,” said Crowley. “You’ve got to do what you can. I’m proud of you, Aziraphale.”

“You are?” Aziraphale’s eyes widened. “Oh, Crowley…”

Crowley held up a hand. “Okay, no. Don’t mention it.”

“I’ll try not to,” Aziraphale said, and cleared his throat. “Actually, I’m surprised you didn’t hear about the cuts. Wouldn’t your supervisor have told you?”

“Not if we’re not getting the cuts, apparently,” said Crowley, feeling guilty all over again. “I should’ve been more tuned in to this.”

“You mustn’t feel guilty,” Aziraphale said fiercely. “I won’t let you. My complaining is nothing to do with anything you’ve done.” He knitted his fingers together. “Oh, I shouldn’t have brought it up!”

Crowley shook his head hard. “No, angel. I would’ve asked questions if you weren’t signing papers for the flat at some point, wouldn’t I? I’d’ve been nosy and then it would’ve been a huge blow-up. You know how I am.” He tried for an encouraging smile, and Aziraphale weakly echoed it. “I’m really glad you told me. Laboratory medicine sounds exciting.” Personally, he’d rather shit a kidney than work a pipette ever again, but that was the kind of thing Aziraphale went for. Probably meant he was smarter than Crowley was. “Maybe you’ll have your own lab soon.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for, my dear boy,” Aziraphale said, and patted Crowley’s knee under the table, sending sparks through him. “It really is.”

* * *

_January 18, 2011_

Aziraphale pulled the blankets off his head, groaning, at the sound of someone opening the door to his flat. His pajamas were soaked through with sweat, and he shivered as the relatively cool air of his room met the damp fabric. “Hello?” he rasped. His throat felt like he’d dragged it over a few miles of unpaved road. “Is someone here?”

He heard the tread of light, _blessedly_ familiar footsteps, and then the door to his bedroom opened to admit the person he most wanted to see. “Jesus, angel,” Crowley said, “you live like this?” He put down the plastic bag he was carrying and crossed to Aziraphale’s bed, laying a cool hand on his forehead. “You’re really warm.”

“Nnnn…” Aziraphale rolled away, a fretful noise escaping his lips. “Don’t, Crowley. It hurts.”

“No kidding.” Aziraphale heard a scraping noise, and knew Crowley had to be dragging over his chair. Another noise followed by a gust of air told him that Crowley had opened the window as well. “Mikey said you were sick, but I didn’t know it was this bad. Maybe I should’ve guessed.” Crowley chuckled. “You wouldn’t call out unless you were practically dying.”

“Doctor _Michaels_ ,” Aziraphale corrected, then coughed. “Ow.”

“Oh, angel.” Crowley laid a hand on his back, the touch light enough not to hurt. “Don’t talk so much. How the hell did you get this sick, anyway?” He rubbed a slow circle between Aziraphale’s shoulder blades, and it felt so good that Aziraphale sighed. “You just said you had a headache the other day.”

Aziraphale rolled back over with some difficulty and blinked his hot, dry eyes to make Crowley’s blurry image resolve. “Flu,” he said.

“Yeah, I can see that.” Crowley bit his lip. “But you got your shot. It shouldn’t be this bad.”

“I…er…” Aziraphale coughed again, trying to disguise the sheepishness creeping into his tone. “I _might_ have gone out for…for crepes yesterday. When it wasn’t so bad.” He wiped a hand across his eyes, which had begun to water with the shift in position.

“ _Crepes?_ ” Crowley repeated. “There’s a massive pile of snow outside. You’re telling me you walked outside in all that when you were already sick, because you wanted some _food?_ ”

Aziraphale hid his face in his pillow. “Well, it was very good food.” He couldn’t regret strawberry crepes, even if they worsened his sore throat and the aches that seemed to go right down to his bones. “Are you here to take care of me?”

“Right in one.” Plastic rustled, followed by the unmistakable sound of a container opening and a wonderful smell that penetrated even Aziraphale’s congested nose. “Chicken soup, obviously. That’s for right now. I also got tissues, flu medicine, and some of those disgusting sports drinks. Can you surface from the depths now, please, angel?”

Aziraphale summoned all his strength and flopped onto his back. “I can’t sit up,” he said to the ceiling. “Too tired. Too cold.”

“Yeah, should’ve expected that,” Crowley said, heaving a sigh. “All right, here. Let me help.” He cupped the back of Aziraphale’s neck with one hand and used the other arm to steady his back, slowly lifting him up into a sitting position and propping him up with pillows. “Can you work a spoon?”

Aziraphale muffled a fit of hacking coughs into his elbow. “Ugh. No.” He felt like half-set jelly, inadequately stirred before he was left to firm up. “Feed me.” If Crowley was going to use his key, then he might as well make himself useful.

“ _Feed meeee, Seymour_ ,” Crowley said in a creepy voice. Aziraphale recognized the reference, but didn’t grace it with a response. “Tough crowd. Okay, okay – God, the things I do for you.” He rolled his eyes, but didn’t do a very good job of concealing the fondness beneath as he pulled the container of soup onto his lap. “Open up.”

Aziraphale did so. Crowley took a spoonful of soup, cupped his hand underneath, and carefully blew on it before bringing it to Aziraphale’s lips. Aziraphale swallowed and immediately moaned. The broth tasted like heaven. “Oh, yes,” he said, licking his lips and relishing the heat in his mouth. “More, please.”

“Yeah, sure,” Crowley said, dipping the spoon into the container again. “Should I be making some joke about the plane coming into the hangar?”

Aziraphale closed his lips over the spoon and shook his head. “No, I hate traveling by plane.” He cleared his dry throat and slowly licked his lips. “This tastes good.” Crowley’s face suddenly went bright red. “Are you all right?”

“Um. I, uh. Fine.” Crowley coughed. Even with his head muddled, Aziraphale could tell it was entirely fake. “’s’fine. Just lost in thought about how ridiculous it is, thirty-nine-year-old guy feeding a forty-one-year-old guy like he’s a baby. Ridiculous, right?”

Aziraphale opened his mouth for more soup, and Crowley obliged him. “Mm,” he said, “not so ridiculous. That’s what friends do for each other, isn’t it?” 

Crowley would have talked him out of going outside. Or – even better – he could have come yesterday, when Aziraphale stumbled in the door shivering and sticky-lipped from his quest for crepes. Aziraphale closed his eyes and basked in the thought of Crowley wrapping him in his duvet and guiding him to bed, whispering the sorts of soft words Aziraphale hadn’t heard from him since that night in 2007.

“Angel?” Crowley tapped his lips with the spoon. “Still with me? If you feel faint, I’m taking you to emergency.”

“No, I’m fine.” He looked down at his lap as his cheeks heated. “I don’t think I’m very hungry anymore, that’s all.” It wasn’t a lie. His stomach felt distended and uncomfortable from even that small amount, a sure sign he was feverish.

“Oh. Okay, I’ll put it in your fridge.” Crowley got up with his usual aplomb and left the room. Aziraphale heard the refrigerator door open and shut, and then Crowley was back with a glass. “Here, you should drink some water, at least,” he said. “Your lips are really dry. They’ll crack if you don’t hydrate. Oh, hold on.” He closed the window. “Don’t want you getting pneumonia on top of the flu.” 

Aziraphale licked his lips and found that Crowley was right. “Oh,” he said, and tried to move his arms, which still felt rather noodley. “Can you…”

“Of course.” Crowley brought the glass to his lips. Aziraphale noticed, apropos of nothing, that he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses; his eyes looked like liquid bronze in the light slanting through the gap between the bedroom curtains. _Purple prose,_ he chided himself. He never would have come up with such a ridiculous simile if he were well.

Crowley seemed to know exactly how much he needed, pulling back the glass after Aziraphale had drunk about half. “Is that okay, or do you want more?”

“I think I’ve had enough for now.” Aziraphale cleared his throat yet again and grimaced. “I feel mucky.”

“That’s the flu for you,” said Crowley, half-smiling, then set the glass on the bedside table. “I’ll leave the rest here for you. Anything else you need? Nothing else in the bag’s perishable, so I can leave it out.”

Aziraphale yawned, then freed an arm long enough to adjust the pillows and get himself lying down. “I’m cold,” he said, curling up.

“Oh. Want me to leave you alone, then?”

Aziraphale hummed against the pillow. It smelled like him, and that wasn’t terrible, but…Crowley was right there, and he was so warm. Aziraphale knew from long experience with a normally-functioning nose that if you got close enough to Crowley, he smelled absolutely intoxicating. “Get in with me, dear?”

His heart began to pound as the resulting silence stretched on. “Crowley?” he ventured. Had he misinterpreted what happened in his old flat that one time? Or had Crowley’s feelings changed? He’d never initiated anything of the sort again. “I’m sorry…I…”

“Nice of you, angel,” Crowley interrupted. Aziraphale kept his head buried in the pillow so he didn’t have to match Crowley’s opaque tone with a facial expression that would undoubtedly crush him. “It’s, uh, nice. That you offered, I mean. I just…you’re sick, and you should rest, and I should go. Probably kept you up – kept you awake too long.”

“Crowley, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be!” Crowley said, far too loudly. “I woke you up. Sleep well, okay? Sleep and get better. Flu’s a right bastard.” The chair legs scraped against the floor as he got up. “Call if you need anything, angel. Aziraphale. Feel better.”

Aziraphale sighed and squeezed his eyes tightly shut so the fever wouldn’t make him cry. He never would have otherwise. Not even over the fact that every time he overstretched like this, Crowley pulled away from him, distant and sad.

He wasn’t sure whether it was something he’d done or something he had failed to do, but either way, he hadn’t lied about being tired. Aziraphale pulled the covers up tighter with another shiver, and let himself slip back into sleep.

* * *

_February 6, 2015_

Aziraphale turned sharply on his heel, pacing again across his little office. It was either that or punch Crowley in the face, and as irritating as Crowley could be, he would never do that to him. “You call that honesty in billing, do you?”

“Libman-Sacks[3] is an _immunological_ condition and you know it, angel,” Crowley snapped, leaning back in Aziraphale’s chair and crossing his arms. “She’d never have gotten it without the lupus. Are you trying to make things harder on yourself?”

“Putting me down as the consulting physician won’t change the underlying disease!” Aziraphale said. “What are you playing at? You’re the one who prescribed her the medications. Are you trying to deprive your department of compensation?”

“And that consult only happened because she was _your_ patient and _you_ brought me in. For fifteen minutes!” Crowley threw his hands in the air. “Fuck’s sake, you’re still monitoring her!” 

Aziraphale clenched his teeth and hissed out a breath. “Out of my chair,” he said. To his credit, Crowley obeyed at once. Aziraphale took the seat and wiggled; Crowley had practically no bum, but he was certainly warm. “You’re all right with all the fee going to me, then? Depriving the cardiologists?”

Crowley leaned against the wall. “We’re hardly deprived. You’re the one who needs the money.”

The retort burned behind Aziraphale’s lips. He’d intended to wait, but damn it, Crowley just _had_ to pull it out of him now. “I don’t need funding,” he said, “not anymore.”

Crowley’s eyes widened and he made a strangled noise, then licked his lips and tried again. “You don’t mean –“

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, unable to keep the smile off his face. “My grant proposal was accepted.”

“You’re _joking_ ,” Crowley said.

“No.”

“I…” Crowley sputtered a few times, clasped his hands, and finally ended up grinning at the ceiling like it was the reason he was pleased. “Fucking hell, angel, I knew you could do it!”

Aziraphale looked down at his feet and tried not to look too smug. “Yes, well. It was a twenty percent chance at most, you know. They don’t take just any.”

“Fucking _hell,_ ” Crowley said, and swooped him up out of the chair before Aziraphale had time to react, hugging him until he thought he might burst. “You’ve earned it, angel!”

Aziraphale laughed and clung to him. “Don’t drop me,” he warned. Crowley was about the size of a twig, but the lovely scent of his neck was worth a moment or two of insecurity. “Thank you for your confidence, my dear.”

Crowley set him down, beaming from ear to ear like he was the one who’d received the notification. “This lab is _yours_ now,” he said. “Are you going to hire a tech? Or grad students or something?”

“A technician would be the next best move, I think,” Aziraphale said. The number of zeros in the amount of money the NIH were handing him had made his head swim when he first saw them. “I wouldn’t have to order everything myself. But don’t think I’ll just sit in here and fob off the experiments on graduate students. I’m not that sort of scientist.”

“Wouldn’t dream of assuming that.” Crowley tapped his fingers on Aziraphale’s desk. “We’ve got to celebrate. Can I take you out to dinner? Or a movie? Is there anything good on?” He looked full of nervous energy, tapping both feet in turn and spidering his fingers up and down his arms. “Anything you want, angel. I mean, unless you want to go out with other friends or something. You don’t need to spend a night like this holed up with me.”

“Crowley, I don’t consider our outings ‘holing up,’” Aziraphale told him. “Don’t sell yourself short. Now...” The opportunity presented itself, and he seized it. “Now that we’ve established I’m doing well for myself, would you _please_ accept my putting you down as a consult?”

“Oh, for – angel, come on.” Crowley looked at him pleadingly. “It wasn’t even fifteen minutes I was in there, more like five. C’mon, you want to make this kid’s family pay up even more for five minutes of my time, if the insurance won’t?”

Aziraphale winced. Crowley knew just where to get him. Although he had no trouble admitting he used puppy-dog eyes on Crowley on a regular basis, he was powerless on the rare occasions Crowley deployed them against him. “Fine,” he said. “Fine, take yourself off. For goodness’ sake, Crowley. And by the way, don’t let me hear another word about not celebrating this with you at some point.”

Crowley nodded. “Thank you, Aziraphale. You really _are_ an angel.”

“I’m not.”

“Well…” Crowley stretched his arms in front of him. “Hey! You know my car? I finally got it over here. Retrofitted it so I can actually drive it here. D’you want a ride?”

“Your Bentley?” Crowley nodded. “It’s finally here?” Crowley had been talking for years about his 1926 Bentley, and the pristine condition he’d been keeping it in since he got it. _Practically new, the way I treat it,_ he’d boasted. Having looked up some photos of that sort of car, Aziraphale was inclined to agree. “And you’re inviting _me_ for a ride in it? I spill food!”

Crowley shook his head. “You’re worth it. What do you say?”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure whether to melt or seethe. _Worth it?_ He thought of the shutter pulling down behind Crowley’s eyes every time Aziraphale went too far, and how he didn’t even know what ‘too far’ was anymore. Crowley was the king of mixed signals these days. He was also the king of terrible driving, and Aziraphale didn’t much feel like having to pull over and vomit on the side of the road again. “You go too fast for me, Crowley,” he said.

“I…” Crowley froze, hand still in the air. It fell limply to his side the next moment. “Okay,” he said quietly. “That’s fine. Um…why don’t I head back to the department, give you some privacy to celebrate?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, already feeling guilty, but Crowley was gone before he could form a full sentence.

* * *

_September 17, 2018_

“May I sit here?”

“Sure,” Anathema said. “Dr. Fell, right?”

“Aziraphale, please,” he replied, putting his tray on the table and sitting down across from her. He looked cuddlier up close, round-faced and cherubic – she would have guessed he was in pediatrics if she hadn’t already been introduced. “And you’re Dr. Device. What’s in your lunch?”

“The cafeteria’s pathetic attempt at gyros,” she said. “And you can call me Anathema. What are you eating?”

Dr. Fell pouted down at his lunch. “They _said_ the breakfast counter had crepes and waffles,” he said, “but these are just pancakes.”

They didn’t look like any crepes Anathema had seen, that was for sure. Poor Dr. Fell had clearly tried to roll them around the fruit compote the cafeteria provided, but they were so thick that they’d just torn. “That’s too bad,” she said. “At least they’ll be tasty, right? Probably? It’s hard to screw up pancakes.” She ate a bite of gyro meat. “Your salad looks good.”

“Yes, the salad bar is well-stocked,” said Dr. Fell, brightening a bit. “Slivered almonds are a wonderful topper. Oh…pardon me.” He went pink. “I’ve been blathering on, and I haven’t asked you about yourself. How have you been since I last saw you?”

“So-so. Still in the CICU.” She dug back into her lunch, and he did the same. “I assume that’s what you meant. Interns don’t really have much of a social life.”

“That is indeed what I meant,” said Dr. Fell, smiling wryly. “No progress on our unusual cases, I take it. How much longer are you on that rotation?”

Anathema took a drink of water. “Just a few more weeks,” she said. “And no, no progress. They’re stable for now, but…” She shrugged. “Adam’s in a lot of pain, obviously. Warlock’s better, but all these hospital visits take a toll on a kid.”

Dr. Fell shook his head. “That’s terrible, just terrible,” he said. “No one wishes that sort of pain on a child. To be truthful…” He leaned in and cast his eyes from side to side. “I’ve been trying to find out the underlying cause in the lab. But please don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t,” Anathema promised. “But that reminds me of something, you know.”

“Oh?”

“My mother made me go to a family reunion with her over the summer,” she explained. “It was in England. The Devices were gathering all the branches so everyone could meet.”

“Sounds rather dreadful,” said Dr. Fell with a shudder.

Anathema nodded. “It was. I don’t do family reunions. But apart from that, I met a woman who’s my tenth cousin by marriage or something – Virtue Device. Her mom was a professor who got kicked out of a university hospital for disturbing the status quo. Something about researching inflammation too intensely.”

Dr. Fell’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t be talking about Agnes Nutter, would you?”

“Yes! You know about her?”

“Know about her? I’ve been trying to get my hands on her papers for years,” Dr. Fell said. “They’re all out of print. I can’t even find a copy in any university library. Have you any idea how frustrating that is?” He rubbed his forehead. “I can’t believe you know her daughter! What’s she like? Did her mother ever find any answers?”

His enthusiasm was infectious, and Anathema laughed to see it. “Slow your roll,” she said. “Her daughter’s not interested in medicine. But –“ That was when the solution hit her. Of course. Of _course._ “I have her papers. Virtue said I had to take some copies when she heard I was a doctor. You want them, right?”

“Of course I want them!” Dr. Fell exclaimed. Someone at the next table gave him the stink-eye, and he subsided, red-faced. “Good gracious, my dear, if you – why would you give me such a gift? You barely know me.”

“Look, Dr. Fell – _Aziraphale_ ,” Anathema corrected herself, “I’ve barely looked at them. I’m more interested in hands-on medicine than lab work. I can always get the papers back from you later if I change my mind.”

“Yes, yes,” Dr. Fell said. “I’ll treat them like gold. They’ll be in pristine condition if you want them back. Oh…” He wrung his hands, eyes distant and almost glazed over. “Shall you bring them to my lab another day? Or would you prefer I come to you?”

“I can find your lab,” she said. “Where is it?”

He fumbled out a piece of paper and a pen. “Not far from the east entrance,” he said, and wrote down the room number. “Would you possibly be able to bring the papers in tomorrow?”

She could, and she did. When she brought the briefcase of papers to Dr. Fell’s lab, he thanked her so profusely and so rapidly that she thought his lips might fall off, then settled in to read.

According to Dr. Crowley, he hadn’t surfaced a day later. But then again, Anathema hadn’t expected him to.

* * *

_September 18, 2018_

Aziraphale read. And read. He read until his eyes went dry and blurry, and his lips cracked from how much he’d licked them. He read until his stomach growled, and while downing a protein bar or a cup of microwaved soup, he read, too.

At one point, he fell asleep in his chair. At another, he had to go use the lavatory. But in-between, he feasted on the bounty of Agnes Nutter’s words, courtesy of Anathema Device’s gift.

When he finally surfaced, his watch told him that what felt like a few minutes – hours at most – had stretched into nearly two days. His desk was covered with notes, and the papers were almost drowning in colorful Post-Its. There were also books piled haphazardly throughout, which explained the ache in his arms. “Oh, my,” he said, winced at the scratchiness of his voice, and took a drink from his water bottle. The contents had warmed to room temperature, but water had never tasted so good. “So many hypotheses.” He cracked his back and stretched his arms over his head, then settled in to try to find a cohesive explanation.

Agnes Nutter kept referring to a constellation of symptoms that she called ‘cardiac immune syndromes.’ Aziraphale flipped through a stack of notecards he’d written patient information on. “No pattern,” he muttered. That was the problem. Autoimmune disease almost universally struck women in higher proportions than men, but Professor Nutter described four patients of different ages and sexes over twenty years of work. His printed literature hadn’t been of much help, either.

He looked at his slumbering computer and made a face. When all else failed, one had to use the Internet, wasn’t that right? With a sigh, he shook the mouse and clicked over to PubMed[4].

“Aziraphale? Are you in here?”

“Whuh?” Aziraphale shook his head. “Crowley?” He checked his computer display – another two hours had gone by, good Lord. “What can I help you with?”

Crowley poked his head into the office. “Oh, good. I have samples for…what the fuck?” He squinted at Aziraphale. “How long have you been in here?”

“Not quite long enough for a cogent hypothesis,” Aziraphale said, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “What brings you here?”

“Samples.” Crowley indicated the cart behind him. “We decided to get aortic biopsies[5] on both boys. I’ve been trying to ring you.”

“Aortic biopsies?” Aziraphale looked at his phone. “Sorry, it was unplugged – did you say _aortic biopsies?_ That’s horribly invasive!”

“I know, I know.” Crowley dragged a hand down his face. He looked so tired that Aziraphale would wager his friend had gotten little more sleep than him over the past two days. “But they’re not getting better, and Warlock at least has a history of arteritis. It’s…shit, what do they call it? Hail Mary time.”

Aziraphale’s tart retort died on his lips as he watched Crowley’s face collapse. He would swear his lower lip was quivering, and Crowley wasn’t a good enough actor to fake crying in his office. “That sounds awful,” he said instead. “You say they asked for these to be processed in this lab?” Crowley nodded. “Well, at least they’ve got me officially on board now. Come on, I’ll take a look and get started.”

Crowley followed him out into the main area, where Aziraphale put on his lab coat and dragged over the cart Crowley had brought. “Paraffin sections?” he said. “Goodness, how long ago _were_ these biopsies?”

“Day before yesterday,” Crowley said. “You were already locked in here, I guess. They rushed the sectioning for us.”

“Mm.” Aziraphale picked up one of the little containers. “What exactly am I supposed to be looking for, if there’s no known cause?”

“Mostly the major vasculitides,” Crowley said. “Kawasaki disease has antibodies.”

“Yes, yes, I know _that_ much,” said Aziraphale, taking a bottle of xylene out of his flammables cabinet. “I’m just afraid this is a fruitless endeavor. If these diseases were caused by those antibodies, then the symptoms would be far more limited in scope.”

Crowley sighed and stood quietly as Aziraphale removed the paraffin sections to rehydrate, labeling each box with the sample number and patient’s name. “It’s the damndest thing,” he finally said. “You’d think a disease that just causes cardiac issues would be limited to the heart, right? Not the skin. Both of them have presented with a petechial rash.”

“Not DIC[6], surely?” Aziraphale said, pipetting out a measure of xylene. “Watch yourself now. You don’t want any splashes of this stuff in your eyes. Anyhow, skin involvement. I’d almost say it was pemphigus vulgaris[7] or something, if the rash was bullous. But they’ve not just had skin symptoms, have they?”

“Yeah,” said Crowley absently as he picked at a cuticle, “the skin and the heart. Not the heart muscle, though. Just the endocardium and the lining of –“ He dropped his hands and fell silent.

Aziraphale put down the pipette and waved a hand in front of him. “Crowley? Are you all right?” Microsleep, most likely, if he was as tired as he looked. “You can’t sleep in here.”

“I’m not sleeping,” Crowley murmured. _You could have fooled me,_ Aziraphale thought; he sounded like he was swimming up from a dream. “Oh my God, Aziraphale.” He abruptly moved again, grabbing Aziraphale’s shoulders. “Do you have any collagen antibodies?”

“Yes. What type?”

“Type three,” said Crowley.

Aziraphale blinked as the request processed itself. “Type three – like hypermobility syndrome?”

“No, no, no. Angel!” Crowley’s eyes were brighter and more animated than Aziraphale could remember seeing them in a long time. Not since before Adam Young was brought in, at least. “Not badly-made collagen, _antibodies against it._ The endocardium and the skin. Please tell me you can figure out what I’m trying to say!”

Aziraphale’s hands trembled, and the feeling suddenly rushed out of them, like he’d put them in a bowl of ice water. “Oh,” he said softly, casting around for the nearest chair and sitting down. “ _Oh_. Yes, I think…” It fit. Endocardium, but not the myocardium. Linings of the blood vessels, even the skin – what if _this_ was the cause, the single cause? “An autoimmune disease, just like we thought. Antibodies to…”

“Type three collagen,” Crowley finished. “Can you – I mean, is that something that you _can_ do, I mean? Check for antibodies and not the protein?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. “Indirect immunofluorescence[8]. It’s possible. I can do it in a night.” He got out of the chair and began to pace. “One autoantibody. But they’re both male.”

“They are,” said Crowley, reaching out and grabbing Aziraphale’s arm, “but there are ones that get men more. I remember you telling me.”

He was right. Primary sclerosing cholangitis[9] – and bloody _hell_ , that attacked the insides of vessels, too. The pieces were falling into place so hard that Aziraphale could almost hear them clunk, or maybe that was just the roaring of blood in his ears. “God in heaven.”

“Fuck God,” Crowley said. He came close enough that Aziraphale could feel the heat of his breath, and he fleetingly wondered if Crowley was about to take his hand. Or – his stomach flipped at the thought – kiss him. “It’s _you_ I’ve got to have faith in right now. Fuck, that’s cheesy, but…you’re sure you can do the staining.”

“Yes, but if it doesn’t turn up anything –“

“It will,” said Crowley fervently. “Nothing else has turned up. This has _got_ to be the cause.”

Aziraphale stood looking into those eyes, hardly breathing, and heard Crowley’s breath match up to his. And then there was a beeping noise that sliced into his head. “What?”

“Oh, fuck, I’m being paged,” Crowley said, yanking out his pager. “ _Shit!_ ”

“What is it? The boys?”

“No, some bell-end who didn’t take his heparin with his warfarin[10] when he went home.” Crowley bared his teeth in frustration. “Now he’s got swelling in his leg and guess who’s got to deal with it? I need to go. But Aziraphale…” He turned back and actually _did_ grab Aziraphale’s hand this time. Aziraphale thought his heart might have skipped a beat. “Ring me as soon as anything happens? Please?”

Aziraphale nodded. “I will,” he promised. “Go on, Crowley. I won’t keep you out of the loop. Tomorrow – just get some sleep tonight.”

“I will,” said Crowley in turn, a statement that Aziraphale didn’t believe in the slightest, and ran out of the lab.

Aziraphale had to fight to keep his hands from shaking as he prepared the samples with their antibody solutions and set them to incubate overnight. He wasn’t entirely successful, but at least he didn’t spill anything, thank goodness.

When everything was set up, he found himself at loose ends, but finally decided to go home for the night. He would be a hypocrite if he told Crowley to sleep, but didn’t even try to do it himself.

* * *

Aziraphale rang Crowley the next morning, after a predictably sleepless night. “Everything’s incubated,” he said. “I want to look at the samples with you.”

“I’ll be right over,” Crowley said, and he was. “Right,” he said when he got through the door, looking as disheveled as if he hadn’t even _tried_ to sleep, “what’ve we got? Is there a – a special microscope you use or something? I can do whatever training you need.”

“Crowley,” said Aziraphale with a laugh, “calm down.” Crowley’s frantic babbling was, strangely, almost calming. “I’ll work the microscope. All you need to do is sit and watch – come on, it’s through here.”

He brought Crowley and his samples to the microscopy area and busied himself with explaining everything as he set it up. If he didn’t, Crowley would notice the shakes that he _absolutely_ couldn’t repress this time. “Now,” he said, “I’ll just put on this filter so we can see the green light. If it exists, I mean. And it’ll show up on the computer here. Which antibody shall we look at first?”

“You know exactly which antibody we’re both interested in,” Crowley told him. “If it’s negative, well. We’ll be disappointed, but we won’t feel like we’re about to be sick if we don’t find out. I know that’s how I feel.”

“So do I,” Aziraphale admitted. “All right, I have the control sample here. Let’s have a look.” He pressed the requisite buttons and the machinery churned as it worked, bringing up the anticipated image. “See how faint the signal is? No antibodies there, just a bit of artifact. Now…” He pulled the sample out and replaced it. “This is Adam Young’s biopsy.” He quickly went through the process again and drew in a stuttering breath as he pressed the final button onscreen.

The computer screen lit up with bright green specks on a dark field, as bright as the stars and just as welcome. “Good lord,” Aziraphale said, his voice coming out fainter than he intended. “There it is.”

“Holy fuck,” said Crowley. “It’s permeating the whole thing. We were right.”

“We were right,” Aziraphale echoed. “Antibodies to collagen – you brilliant, _brilliant_ boy!” His heart leaped for joy in his chest, and before he could stop himself, he grabbed Crowley’s face and kissed him squarely on the lips. His chair rolled with his movements; it felt like the earth turning beneath him.

Then Crowley was scooting away, shock written all over his face. “Um. You…uh.” His lips moved, but all that came out was a series of gargling noises. “Meant to do that?”

“Er,” Aziraphale said. Time to stiffen his upper lip, or perhaps his spine. “I did. Shall we look at Warlock’s sample now?”

“Yyy _yeah_ ,” Crowley said, drawing out the word. “Sure, okay. Warlock. Gotta make sure they’ve got the same issue, um, for science.”

Aziraphale declined to answer that, instead taking a few snapshots of Adam’s biopsy and putting in Warlock’s. “Oh, my,” he said. “It’s what we expected, isn’t it? The antibody staining pattern is almost identical.”

“Oh, thank – thank _something_ ,” said Crowley. “Got worried there for a second. I thought maybe…you know me, always worrying about things. But now we’ve got a cause for both of these kids!” He flashed Aziraphale a grin, which soon faded. “Shit. Now we need to find a treatment.”

“Which is _my_ area of expertise, dear boy,” Aziraphale said. “Don’t worry, I’m on much firmer ground with this. They’ve been on…what was it? Steroids?” Crowley nodded. “Time to find something else, I think.”

“You’re sure?”

“Crowley, my dear.” Aziraphale touched Crowley’s arm. “The most difficult part is over. We’ve _found_ the disease. Do you have any idea how relieved patients are when they hear the word ‘diagnosis’? Oh!” He smiled as something occurred to him. “Both patients had biopsies? I’m so glad they found a way around the financial issues.”

Crowley dropped his gaze. “Sure,” he said.

“Crowley?”

“I’ve got money,” he said. “They haven’t. What have I done except buy my flat? Sixteen years and I don’t spend anything.”

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, dread and realization dawning on him, “you _didn’t_.”

“I didn’t _just_ ,” said Crowley defensively. “I also might have tweaked the billing a bit – don’t you look at me like that. I’m doing what’s right, angel.”

Aziraphale stood up so quickly that he nearly knocked over his chair, staring Crowley down with his hands on his hips. “Yes, and you’re going to get yourself sacked!” he exclaimed. “Crowley, this is – you _have_ to go through the system!”

“This isn’t the NHS,” Crowley said, and stood up himself. “Listen, Aziraphale, they’re not Americans and they don’t have our fucking insurance. Their savings are running out. This would have bankrupted them if I didn’t do anything.” He threw his hands into the air in a gesture that suggested he could have done nothing else. “Please tell me you understand.”

“I understand that you’re reckless and stubborn, and you don’t think beyond the end of your nose!” Aziraphale jabbed a finger into Crowley’s face. “Listen to yourself – you’re breaking the law! This hospital isn’t heartless with regards to payment.”

“If you would just _help me_ – “

Aziraphale reared back in outrage. “Oh, you want my help? I suppose you want me to be sacked, too!” he shouted. “Crowley, Gabriel has been riding my bum about the money issue. They’re _watching_! Whatever you’ve done, you’ll be found out!”

“You have no spine,” Crowley snarled, puffing up like a snake about to strike. “I know what you want. You want to withhold treatment until a miracle happens and money falls from the sky.”

“They’re both stable –“

“Oh, I see.” Crowley folded his arms. “You can’t kill a kid, but you can turf him over to me so my department has to make out the death certificate? Bit holier-than-thou, isn’t it?”

“Shut up!” Aziraphale was sure his face was red. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Crowley scoffed. “Yeah, well – I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.”

“Don’t you start with that rhyme again,” said Aziraphale.

“Aziraphale!” Crowley’s chin trembled as he grabbed Aziraphale’s arm. “Listen to me. This doesn’t have to divide us. We’re not enemies. It’s us against the healthcare system – we’re on our own side!”

“There _is_ no our side, Crowley!” The words were out of Aziraphale’s mouth before he could stop them, keep them from hanging in the air between them like miasma. “It’s over.”

Crowley’s expression changed them, running through emotion after emotion before finally settling on hard and emotionless. “Right,” he said after far too long of a pause, “I get it. Have fun signing these kids’ death certificates, Dr. Fell.”

And with that, he was gone.

* * *

Anathema looked both ways down the hall to make sure she wouldn’t be seen, then slipped into Adam’s room. “Hey,” she said quietly. “Still can’t sleep?”

“No,” Adam said. “Still hurts.” He looked even paler than he had before they took him in to surgery. Anathema had checked his chart before she came in – things went smoothly in there, but she supposed it was a pretty invasive procedure for an eleven-year-old.

“I’m not surprised,” she said. “Where’s your mom?”

“She went back to the hostel,” said Mr. Young, looking up from his magazine. “It’s her turn to have a kip. I slept yesterday, so it’s only fair.”

Anathema personally would have preferred they both sleep every day, but then again, she’d never had a sick child. Having seen everything that could go wrong with kids since she started her clinical years of med school, she wasn’t sure she ever wanted any. “Just make sure you get some rest when you can,” she said, pulling the door almost shut. “I have something that might help your pain.”

“He doesn’t need more drugs,” Mr. Young said. “They’ve made him enough of a zombie already, thank you.”

“No, not drugs.” She pulled the bottle of lotion out of her pocket. “This has CBD oil in it. Not THC,” she clarified, seeing Mr. Young’s raised eyebrow. “There aren’t any molecules in this that can make him high, just the compounds that help with pain. I thought if he had some rubbed into his joints, he might be able to sleep.”

The eyebrow went up higher. “Is that allowed?”

“Technically, probably not,” she admitted. “But it’s non-invasive, and I did sterilize the bottle.” It was unscented, too, so there wasn’t much of a chance that anyone would notice.

Mr. Young sighed and adjusted his reading glasses. “If you think it’ll work, go on and try it. Adam? Do you want to try?”

Adam’s eyes traced a path from his father to Anathema, while his head remained still. Finally, he gave a tiny nod. “Okay.”

Anathema quickly squirted out some lotion and warmed it in her hands before rubbing it into the joints of his left arm. God, if anyone came in and thought this was weird, she was so fired. “Did you know,” she said conversationally, “that humans are the greatest threat to the planet?”

Adam blinked. “Oh.”

“Yup. Global warming – it’s a killer. Bet that’s a lot worse than whatever you’ve got going on.” She finished his left arm and moved on to the right. “And then there are GMOs, and all the stuff made out of plastic, and humans are actually kind of terrible.”

Heartened by his tiny smile, she went on in that vein until she’d covered most of his problem areas. “Okay,” she said when he was adequately lotioned, “let me know tomorrow if that works.”

He nodded, his eyes already drooping closed. Whether it was the lotion or the touch, Anathema didn’t know, but she felt heartened anyway. “Mm-hm.”

“Have fun dreams,” she said, gave a last nod to both Adam and Mr. Young, and left as quietly as she had come in.

* * *

[1] Lymph nodes of the armpit

[2] Anyone who’s come into contact with someone who has the bubonic plague needs to be isolated, tested, and given antibiotics in case of a positive test.

[3] Endocarditis caused by lupus, known as a type of “sterile” (no bacteria) endocarditis

[4] A commonly-used online medical database

[5] A biopsy of the aorta, the large artery leading directly from the heart to the peripheral circulation

[6] Disseminated intravascular coagulation: a complication that most often occurs in severe sepsis, involving clots in the small blood vessels and uncontrolled internal bleeding

[7] An autoimmune disease against a component of the skin, leading to blisters

[8] Immunofluorescence is a procedure that uses antibodies attached to glowing molecules to visualize proteins or antibodies of interest. Super cool.

[9] An inflammatory disease that targets the vessels carrying bile acids

[10] Warfarin and heparin are both anti-clotting medications, but in the first few days of taking it, warfarin first knocks out some proteins that keep you from clotting. Patients who don’t also take heparin during that time risk serious blood clots. Crowley’s patient has a clot deep in his leg.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to meinposhbastard for beta-reading!


	4. how I miss you more and more

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things begin to move faster as Aziraphale fails at enlisting the help of his higher-ups, and a very awkward romance is born.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to meinposhbastard for beta-reading!
> 
> This chapter contains some extremely awkward sex. :D

_September 24, 2018_

Newt straightened his scrub top and pushed his glasses back up his nose as he approached the nurses’ station. “Er,” he said, “excuse me. I, uh, I’m looking for a – a Doctor Device?”

The woman at the nearest computer looked up. “What do you want with her?” she said.

He gulped – she sounded suspicious, and he’d never dealt well with that. “I w-wanted to see if, uh,” he paused to clear his throat, “see if she wanted a coffee or something. I’d pay.”

She fixed him with a glare. “During work hours? What were you thinking?”

“That…that I like her?”

The nurse sighed and stood up, and Newt saw that her nametag said ‘Tracy Potts.’ She didn’t look like a Tracy, not unless there was a Madame or a Princess in front of her name. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a nurse wearing earrings like that. Were those even allowed? “For future reference,” she said, “it’s not the done thing to ask a woman on a date when she’s at work. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re socially awkward rather than malicious.”

“I am,” he said quickly. “I really am. I usually don’t ask women out. I – I don’t know, I just thought…maybe she’d want to. She came down to Radiology and yelled at me, and, er, I wanted to apologize. For doing something to get yelled at, I mean. Coffee?” 

“Did you?” said Nurse Tracy, and raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s better than most. I…oh, Mr. Shadwell, _what_ have you done now?”

“Nothing!” said the disheveled-looking man she’d addressed, throwing his hands in the air. “I’m only here to update the charts. I haven’t done nothin’. Who’s this?” He looked at Newt and stroked his bearded chin. “He’s new.”

Newt shook his head. “No, sorry, I’m not in this department. I’m a radiology technician.” Not a great one, but at least he could lay claim to the job title. “I’m just here to look for, uh. Never mind. I’ll try again later.” If Dr. Device came by right now and saw him behaving like an idiot, that would kill any minuscule chance he had with her.

Shadwell approached him, squinting suspiciously. “Sure?” he said. “You look like you might make a good nurse. Do a good job, once you learn how to diagnose a patient without the doctor, even.”

“Shadwell!” Tracy said. “He doesn’t want to hear your theories. _No one_ does. How many times have I got to say it?”

He pulled the sort of face that Newt’s mum would have smacked him for when he was five. “You, radiology technician,” he said, “listen to this. _Any_ patient diagnosis, any disease at all, you can tell by what’s in the – “

“ _Shadwell!_ ”

“ – bedpan.” Shadwell raised his voice on the final word. “Think about it. They’re everywhere! What other receptacle gives you such a wealth of information about your patient? All it takes is a bit of practice. You’d get over your squeamishness in no time.”

Newt shoved his hands in the pockets of his top and hoped he wasn’t turning as green as he felt. “I don’t think I’d be able to,” he said. “That’s really interesting. But, um, I’m not interested. Just personally.”

“Well,” said Shadwell with a sigh, “that’s a disappointment. No one ever wants to join me.” He scratched his head. “Maybe that fellow Dr. Crowley brought in here. Seems smart, but he’s a great southern pansy.”

Newt’s mouth dropped open. Tracy hit Shadwell on the shoulder. “How many times have I told you that you can’t say those things?” she demanded. “We’re not in Britain anymore, and really? Pansy? You owe that man an apology for saying a thing like that!”

“He didn’t hear,” Shadwell grumbled, massaging his shoulder. Newt thought it was a little hypocritical of Shadwell to be judging anyone on where they came from when he sounded like the groundskeeper from The Simpsons, but at least Tracy had him well enough in hand that Newt didn’t have to protest. “Besides, I said he was smart, didn’t I? I heard he’s got a laboratory.”

“Yes, something in immunology,” said Tracy. “Not that it’s any of your concern.”

“I’ll have to have a look,” said Shadwell, as though he hadn’t heard. “This Dr. Fell character’s bound to have some interesting ideas. I should go when my shift’s over.”

Tracy rolled her eyes. “If he’s really that smart, he won’t listen to you, and good for him.”

“I’m going when my shift ends,” said Shadwell stubbornly. “You can’t stop me.”

“Fine,” said Tracy. “Maybe you’ll learn something new, Mr. Shadwell. If he can talk you out of your ideas about bedpans, that’ll be a load off most of my days.” She turned her gaze on Newt. “And what about you? Why aren’t you working?”

“My shift got overscheduled,” said Newt, looking down at his feet. “My boss, um, told me to go home. I’m not skiving off work to be here.”

Tracy raised an eyebrow. “I’ll take your word for it,” she said. “Now you stay right here where I can keep an eye on you. _If_ Dr. Device is here, I won’t have you harassing her. She’s got enough to deal with –“ Her computer pinged, and she sat back down, then immediately groaned. “Oh, bugger!”

“What?”

She began typing furiously. “Not that it’s any of your business, but the little boy from England isn’t doing well,” she said. “Neither is the other one with cardiac issues, but at least he’s stable. I pity those poor parents.”

“That sounds terrible,” Newt said. Apart from what Dr. Device shouted at him, he’d heard something about those two kids with heart attacks.

She took out her pager. “Sit in the back and don’t bother anyone if you insist on staying here. I need a doctor to sign off on these orders.”

Newt sat down in the farthest chair away from her and shut up. If there was one thing he’d learned from working in a hospital, it was that making nurses mad never ended well.

* * *

Aziraphale hurried back towards the elevator, feeling his heart rate quicken. This was the second time in a week he’d tried to come up here and have a word with Crowley, and the second time he’d lost his nerve, but only the first time he’d heard worrying patient information. It was just lucky for him that he hadn’t been spotted. But God, those poor boys.

Crowley was right. He couldn’t just stand by and let those children die.

He paused in front of the elevator, finger poised in front of the down button, and made his decision with an abrupt about-face. Gabriel would understand. He had to, if Aziraphale explained it well enough. All he knew was that he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he did nothing.

The door to Gabriel’s office was open a crack, but Aziraphale knocked anyway, just below the bronze nameplate that said _G. Evangelatos, Head of Internal Medicine_. “Come in!” Gabriel called cheerily. “Door’s open.”

Aziraphale came in, closing the door gently behind him. Gabriel had a wonderful eye for taste. Where his office shelves weren’t filled with gleaming new editions of the best medical books, he had collections of crystal figurines. The whole place smelled like leather. “Gabriel,” he said, sitting hesitantly down on one of the chairs across from his desk. “May I have a word?”

“Always.” Gabriel leaned across the desk, hands clasped on the blotter in front of him. “Something wrong?”

“No. Er, yes, I mean. Sort of,” Aziraphale said. He always felt so wrong-footed around Gabriel, no matter how friendly he was. Best to just dive in with what he needed. “You remember those two boys with cardiac events, I take it? Warlock Dowling and Adam Young?”

Gabriel frowned. “Yes, of course. We’ve talked about them before.”

“Well, they’re getting worse,” Aziraphale said. “Both of them. And my fr – I mean, I believe I’ve discovered what’s going on. It’s an autoimmune disease attacking the collagen of their vasculature and skin.”

One of Gabriel’s eyebrows went up. “It is?”

“Yes.” Aziraphale cleared his throat and forged on. “If it’s relapsing-remitting[1], that would explain why they appear healthy for long periods, and why Adam Young only became ill so recently. These diseases have different times of onset, you see. Especially if they’re genetic.” He paused. This wasn’t Gabriel’s area of interest, he knew. “But the mechanism isn’t so important. What I came to talk to you about is potential treatments. I’ve been thinking about options.”

“Have you?” said Gabriel. His face was unreadable, neither open and friendly nor cold and forbidding. Aziraphale had seen both on a number of occasions, and he wasn’t sure which he would have preferred now. “Well, it’s good you have a hypothesis, I guess.”

“Yes, of course. Gabriel…” Aziraphale took a deep breath. “Disease-modifying drugs, you know, the anti-inflammatory antibody ones[2], those might help. Or a stem cell transplant. But those treatments are terribly expensive, and I don’t think the Youngs have any money left. Or insurance, and –“

Gabriel’s fingers flexed. “Aziraphale.”

“Please, Gabriel,” Aziraphale said. “Please, we’ve got to have the funds somewhere. If not for both, then at least for one of them. Think of the PR! Two little boys, the heroic hospital that saved them – can’t we do something? I can’t just sit here and do nothing while –“

“Aziraphale, let me be perfectly clear,” said Gabriel. “You’ve been on thin ice for a long time with your…proclivity for pro bono work. I’ve been nice enough to let it go. But our funding isn’t unlimited, and may I remind you, neither is yours.” His mouth tightened. “We’re not a charity. The bottom line is important. If you go forward with this against orders, I’m afraid there will be no more room for the Fell lab in the laboratory cluster.”

The energy went out of Aziraphale as if a bolt of lightning had struck him, and he slumped against the back of the chair. “You can’t,” he whispered. “You don’t…it’s not your jurisdiction.” He was still an immunology attending, but that was the only part of his job Gabriel controlled.

“You’d be surprised how persuasive I can be,” Gabriel said, mouth quirking. “Now, I don’t think you want to lose your little lab over there. All those important scientific discoveries will have to remain undiscovered. And don’t you have a technician or something to support?”

Guilt roared through Aziraphale like a stoked fire. “Yes.” His mouth moved without permission.

Gabriel tapped his chin. “And, if I recall, you have an interview or something this afternoon.”

 _Bugger me sideways,_ Aziraphale thought. Gabriel was right, although there was no earthly reason why he should know that. He’d scheduled the interview with an interested graduate student weeks ago, and it was far too late to cancel, no matter what else was going on. “Yes, Gabriel, I do,” he said. “A student.”

“Look,” said Gabriel, leaning forward, “none of us want any little kids to die. That’s not why we took the Hippocratic oath. We just have to be practical.” He looked Aziraphale right in the eyes. “No one’s being thrown out into the street, you know. We just need to follow protocol, and the _proper_ channels for funding.” He shrugged. “His parents will be okay. No one ever died because they had to get a second job.”

Aziraphale bit the insides of his cheeks. “I…suppose.”

“I’m glad you understand. You’re a smart guy, Aziraphale. Hiring you was a good choice, I said so from the beginning.” Gabriel looked at his watch and stood up. “Sorry, but I have a meeting in five minutes. We need to wrap this up.”

Aziraphale stood up quickly enough that the chair scraped against Gabriel’s undoubtedly expensive rug. “No, of course, I don’t want to keep you. Thank you for meeting with me.” _Coward,_ he thought to himself. _Boot-licker._

“Anytime.” Gabriel looked Aziraphale up and down, then suddenly reached out and gave him a light, playful punch in the belly. “And hey – lose the gut. You’re an insurance risk.” He smiled, a huge, cheesy grin. “Don’t worry about the door. It’ll lock automatically.”

“Er,” said Aziraphale. But Gabriel had already gone, flicking the lights off as he went.

He looked down at his belly. “I’m soft,” he said, hating his embodiment of the word for more reasons than one, and pulled the door closed far more quietly than it deserved as he exited the office.

* * *

Four lawyers in expensive suits sat around a table in a wood-paneled room two floors down, all staring at the conference phone in the middle. “This Dr. Midgley certainly gave us something to think about,” said Mr. Sable. A bundle of papers was neatly spread out in front of him. “I’m sure it goes without saying what we need to do about these billing discrepancies.”

“Well, address them as quickly as possible, obviously!” said Ms. Zuigiber, who had once been a war correspondent before she decided that getting into the hospital-lawyer game tickled her fancy more. “Think of how it would look.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Chalky, who preferred no form of address at all and had a nasty habit of leaving Starbucks cups – both plastic and paper – behind. “But look, none of us three have the most experience here. What do you think, Terry?”

The fourth lawyer, clad in a smoke-gray suit that would have made him blend in anywhere, sat deep in thought with a finger on his chin. “I think there’s just one question that we have to answer,” he said. “Who the hell is Anthony Crowley, and how is he getting this paid for?”

* * *

“Now,” said Aziraphale, “you’ve plenty of experience, which is of course a plus. But I do also require another quality for anyone seeking to join the lab, which means –“ He heard the door squeak open behind him. “I’m in the middle of an interview. Please come back later.”

“Angel!” Crowley said, and skidded to a stop in front of him. Aziraphale’s heart skipped a beat. “I’m sorry. Whatever I said earlier, _everything_ I said earlier, I apologize.” He was panting and red-faced, and looked like he’d run ten miles in one go. “We’ve got to talk about this.”

“ _Crowley_.” Aziraphale pushed the name through his clenched teeth. “This isn’t a good time.”

Crowley shook his head and held up a hand, gulping in a few breaths. “Please, Aziraphale, it’sss important,” he insisted. “I just heard – something’s going on. Someone’s got my name, I don’t know how much they know, but…anyway. You haven’t got to take responsibility. They’ll never know you’re involved if I take the fall!”

“Wait, _what?_ ”

“The kids,” said Crowley. “We can help the kids. I’ve been researching treatments for autoimmune diseases. What about a bone marrow transplant? Or myeloablative[3] stuff? That’s what it’s called, right? I can talk Billing ‘round. They love me.”

Aziraphale felt his lips pull back. “Really, Crowley, this again? For the love of…for God’s sake, we _need_ to go through the proper channels!” Gabriel’s voice sounded in his head: _You’d be surprised how persuasive I can be_. “Who’s going to pay for a bone marrow transplant, then? You? I tell you, I won’t have either of us sacked, and I _will not lose my lab!_ ” His voice rang in the small office; he hadn’t intended to be so loud, but if he got his point across that way, so be it.

“You selfish –“

“So what if I am?” Aziraphale said. “Haven’t I earned the right to be a bit selfish, after everything I’ve done here?”

Crowley’s mouth opened and shut. “You’re so clever,” he finally said, his voice breaking. “How can someone as clever as you be so stupid?”

Aziraphale had heard far worse from people he cared far less about. He schooled his face into the most high-and-mighty expression he could manage and readied his best ‘I grew up religious’ voice. “I forgive you,” he said.

Crowley reared back. “Right,” he said. “I’m going home, angel. And when I’m off practicing at some clinic in Bugger-All, I won’t even _think_ about you!” He turned on his heel, and probably would have slammed the door behind him, except it didn’t slam very well.

Tears filled Aziraphale’s eyes despite his best efforts. “Oh,” he said softly. “I…er…” He wiped his face and turned. “Where were we?”

The student leaned forward and put a hand on his arm, his expression sympathetic. “No disrespect intended, Dr. Fell,” he said, “but I’ve been there. You’re better off without him.”

“No,” Aziraphale said as his vision blurred. “I’m really, really not.”

* * *

In retrospect, Newt probably should have noticed the Wet Floor sign.

He’d just gotten up to see if there was a vending machine anywhere, since Nurse Tracy had gone off somewhere and he didn’t really feel comfortable asking her replacement if there were snacks around.

About half a hallway out from the nurses’ station, he caught sight of Dr. Device coming out of a door about a nanosecond before his foot slipped. “Hi,” he squeaked, and went down mid-wave, landing so hard on his arse that he saw stars. To make things worse, his head hit the wall a moment later.

He thought he might have passed out for a bit.

Dr. Device was snapping her fingers in his face when his eyes opened again. “Hey,” she said, “are you okay?”

“Mm-hm,” he said, then groaned at the pain of speaking.

“Good. God, this hallway’s a menace,” she said. “You’re the second person I’ve seen have an accident in it, and the first one was me. How do you feel? Can you stand up?”

“Maybe,” Newt said. “Am I bleeding?”

“No, but you’ll bruise. Here.” She held both hands out, and he took them, pulling himself up with difficulty. The hallway was spinning by the time he got on his feet again. For a brief second, there were two women in front of him before her image resolved back into one. “Do you feel like you need to go to the ER?”

Newt pressed his hand against the side of his head, where a huge tender spot was already forming. “The what?”

She sighed. “How long have you lived here? Okay, sorry – I think it’s A&E for you.”

“I know what it is,” he said. “My head just hurts.”

“Yeah, no kidding. I was wondering if I should send you to Neuro.” Dr. Device let out a short laugh and waved towards the nurses’ station. “No, it’s fine, he’s okay. I have this under control.”

Newt rubbed the sore spot and hissed through his teeth. “Sorry, I hope this isn’t taking time out of your day, but, er, is there something I can take? I’m sort of in pain.” That was an understatement; he hurt from his tailbone up to the top of his head, and he wasn’t sure which part hurt most. “I won’t bother you after that.” No way she’d want to go out with him now, and he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable by asking.

Dr. Device nodded, then looked at her phone. “Sure. I should be off shift already, anyway. Jeez. I’m not trying to be a workaholic, but…” She shrugged. “Can’t always avoid it. Come on, I’ll get you something.”

She brought him to a locked door and entered a code, then went in, leaving the door open a little. “No one’s in here,” she said as she opened a locker and started to dig around in it. “Otherwise I’d close the door. Any drug allergies?”

Newt shook his head. “None that I know of.”

“Okay, good. Found it!” She triumphantly held up a little bottle, then came out with it and shook two white pills into his palm. “Aspirin,” she said. “Nothing illegal. Is it true you can’t get NSAIDs[4] over the counter in England?”

He dry-swallowed the pills, wincing as they went down. “Not as far as I know. Sounds a bit bonkers.”

“Oh. I thought that sounded off.” Her expression turned speculative. “Hey, question – were you up here to ask me out? I didn’t think radiology techs usually left the department.”

God, was he really that obvious? Newt looked away, his cheeks going hot. “Yeah, but I know it was a bad idea,” he said. “I’ll go. I’ve already taken up enough of your time. And wasted your medication.”

“No,” she said, and touched his arm. “It’s okay. I…I’m flattered.”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” he said. “I don’t, uh, expect anything.”

“Hey.” She pulled on his arm, and he turned to look at her. “I said I’m flattered, not ‘no,’” she continued. “Tell you what, why don’t we go downstairs and have something to eat in the cafeteria?”

Newt gawped at her for a shameful number of seconds before he finally managed to pull in his jaw. “Sure,” he said, his voice coming out embarrassingly shaky. “Do you want me to pay, or, uh, pay for ourselves? I’m the one who asked you out, so…”

“I can get it,” Dr. Device said. She started towards the elevator, and he followed. “I trust you a little more now, you know,” she said over her shoulder. “My mother always says never to go out with a man who won’t meet you in a public place.”

* * *

“I didn’t think you’d get a burger,” said Newt, pointing to Dr. Device’s tray.

“Why?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Because you’re a doctor,” he hastened to explain. “They’re always going on about saturated fats and sodium and everything. I hear a lot about it when we look at people’s kidney images.” He cleared his throat and pointed to his own order of chips. “I don’t listen much. You can probably tell _that_ , Dr. Device.”

She laughed. “Anathema,” she said. “If we’re on a date, call me by my first name.”

“Anathema,” Newt repeated. “That’s an unusual name.”

“My mother thought it sounded pretty.” Anathema took a sip of her water. “Everyone in my family is pretty big into New Age stuff. The sounds of names, healing powers of elements, things like that.”

“Are they anti-vaxxers?”

“No, thank God,” she said. “They’re not that crazy. My parents were so proud when I went to med school. Mom doesn’t like me being all the way over here, though. She wanted me to come back to California and be a dermatologist.” She laughed. “That’s not me, though.”

Newt ate a chip. “No?”

“Derm’s great, but I wanted to be right in the middle where people needed me,” Anathema replied. “I think I made the right choice. I’m learning so much here. Some of it’s incredibly heart-wrenching, though.”

“Those kids with the heart conditions, right?” Newt said. “I heard about them. Apart from you yelling at me about one of them.”

Anathema smiled. “I won’t apologize for that,” she said, and took a bite of her burger. “The kid I was talking about needed those images. Sometimes you have to be assertive.”

“I’m not mad,” said Newt. “I was pretty impressed, actually. You got the images, right? Did they help?”

“Not really,” she answered, shaking her head. “He’s still not doing very well.” She snorted. “No, that’s an understatement. He’s doing _terribly_. The only reason I’m here is I got told I’ll be written up if I keep going over my shift.”

“That’s terrible.”

She shrugged. “It’s regulation,” she said. “I can protest all I want, but it’s been shown that a week of too little sleep is equivalent to coming to work under the influence.” He must have made a strange face at that, because she grinned. “Seriously.”

“I believe it!” Newt said.

“Good, because it’s true. Hey – I’ve been talking about myself all this time,” she said, and slapped her forehead. “How about you? How long have you been in the US?”

“Two years,” Newt said, “but I didn’t come from St. Judith’s in Oxford. I got my tech degree here and started out after that.”

Anathema rested her elbow on the table and cupped her chin in her hand. “What brought you here?”

“Wasn’t much for me back home. I was kind of a dud,” he admitted. “I’m still a bit shit with computers. My supervisors usually have me do the stuff with the patients, positioning them and all.”

“Being terrible with technology seems like it would be bad for your job.”

“It’s mostly just computers,” Newt said. “I haven’t broken any of the expensive stuff adjusting it yet. Thank goodness. If I did that, I’d be sacked, and I’d have to go back to England and live with my mum.”

Anathema laughed; the sound was as pretty as she was. “A fate worse than death.”

They finished their food in the same general vein. Anathema was so easy to talk to that Newt could almost forget how weird he was. “Oh,” he said, when he finally looked down and realized he’d finished. “Er, should we…bus our trays?”

“Sure.”

He stood up, nearly knocking over his chair. His hands were shaking, and he hid them behind his back. She was going to go home, and he’d probably do the same, and they’d both be too busy to go out again soon, and he’d lose his chance to talk to the most interesting woman he’d ever met. “Uh, can I ask you something?”

Anathema nodded. “Go ahead.”

Newt swallowed hard. _Come on, Pulsifer,_ he thought, _don’t be stupid._ He was damned if he’d let another chance in his life slip away. “Do you – do you think you might want to come back to my flat?” He squeezed his eyes shut, awaiting a polite but firm rejection as the seconds ticked by. Well, at least he’d tried.

“You know what, I really would,” Anathema said. Newt’s eyes popped open. “But I don’t want to leave when the kids are so unstable.”

“You wanted to stay here overnight?” Newt asked.

“Yeah. I planned to sleep in an on-call room, but don’t tell anyone.” Anathema’s cheeks went pink. “It’s really frowned upon to do that when you’re not actually on call.”

He scratched the back of his neck. She wasn’t saying no, but she didn’t want to leave – it was like a puzzle in school, the sort where you had to figure out the most logical solution to the word problem. “I could stay a bit longer,” he offered, “but, um. I don’t think I should do _that_ in an on-call room. I’ve seen Grey’s Anatomy.”

Anathema frowned, concentrating. “There’s got to be somewhere…” She pressed her fingertips against her temples. “Wait a second. Dr. Crowley told me about this place in the basement. No one goes there. If I can trust that you’re not a serial killer or whatever, well.” She shrugged. “That’s a maybe.”

“Erm, why’s your boss telling you about hook-up spots?” Newt blurted out before he could stop himself, then flushed so hot that he thought it must be radiating off him. “Sorry, that’s rude.”

“He said it was for sleeping,” Anathema said. “No idea how you can sleep in a supply closet. God, I wouldn’t be surprised if _he’s_ hooked up in there.”

“Dr. Crowley,” said Newt. He thought he remembered the name. Right, there was a Crowley who had come downstairs and given him the stink-eye, too. “The guy with the red hair? Wears sunglasses indoors?”

“That’s him. He’s one of my bosses for the moment. Weird guy, but he doesn’t treat me like dirt for being an intern.” Anathema chuckled. “God, I can’t believe that’s my standard for decency these days. So, uh – yeah. You want to go downstairs?”

 _I’m dreaming,_ Newt thought. First she’d said yes, and now she wanted to do… _something_ here in the hospital. If he thought too hard about it, he would probably pass out. “Um. Y-yeah. Can you show me where it is?”

She led him out of the cafeteria and into the basement, past the Pathology department and into areas he’d never seen. “Here,” she finally said, stopping in front of a nondescript door. “Also, I figured I should say this – I do have pepper spray.”

“I’m not going to do anything,” Newt said quickly. “Not – not anything you don’t want, I mean. I won’t hurt you. I don’t do that.”

“I believe you,” Anathema said. “Just making sure.” She swung open the door and ushered him inside.

The place was bigger than Newt had expected, but still obviously a closet. There were boxes of cleaning supplies stacked on top of each other, and cobwebs linked dusty brooms and mops together. “I can’t see Dr. Crowley snogging anyone in here,” he said. “He came across as too cool for that.”

“Dr. Crowley probably isn’t hurting for people who want to kiss him,” said Anathema. “I didn’t ask how he learned about this place.” She sat down on a box of – Newt squinted at the faded writing on the side – floor wax containers. “Pull up a seat?”

Newt found a footstool and gingerly sat down on it, not trusting the boxes with his weight. “So…” He looked up at the flickering single bulb. “Were we going to talk, too, or just…? Um. Because I should probably tell you, I’ve never done anything with a girl before. Or woman.”

“You haven’t even _kissed_ anyone?” Anathema said. “Women or otherwise?”

He shook his head. “Kind of pathetic, right? I’m twenty-four and I haven’t had sex.” His cheeks went hot. “Or even kissed anyone. Not that – I’m not trying to use you,” he went on, well aware of how much he was blathering, but unable to make himself stop. “You’re not experimental or anything for me. I just like you.”

“I didn’t think you were using me.” Anathema reached out and touched his knee. “Look, I admit I can be kind of methodical with this stuff, all the talking and planning out and everything. But I like to be careful. The stars have to align.”

“Literally or figuratively?” She didn’t seem like one to be interested in conspiracy theories.

“Both, sometimes,” Anathema said. “I like witchcraft.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Are you completely shocked?”

Newt couldn’t help a laugh. “A little,” he admitted. “You seem more down-to-earth than that.”

“Well, you haven’t seen what I wear on my days off,” she said. “It’s really occult. Think Victorian stuff.” Then she smiled. “But what the hell am I doing, talking about all this? I can tell you about my clothes any time. I brought you down here because I want to _do stuff_ with you.”

He was immediately at least half-hard, not enough to burst his zipper, but definitely enough to strain against it. Newt fought the sudden urge to cover his crotch. “S-so…okay, you _do_ want to. What do we do now? I mean, what am I supposed to –“

She seated herself on his lap and kissed him.

For a moment, it was like all the motor control had gone out of his face. Then Newt regained some of it and kissed back, clumsily but eagerly, seeking out the warmth of her mouth. She was much better at kissing than he was; he noticed it right away, but her guidance was a relief rather than an embarrassment. “Not so much tongue,” she whispered at one point as she pulled back. “More lips.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Anathema ran her hands up and down his sides, and Newt shivered. “Can I take your shirt off?”

“I’ve got it.” He leaned back, nearly dislodging her, and pulled off his shirt with shaking hands. His nipples immediately hardened in the cool air, and he saw Anathema shamelessly goggling at them. “Am I…okay?”

“God, yes.” Anathema attacked his mouth again, a hand on his hip. From the movement of her shoulders, he guessed she was using the other to unfasten her bra. His mouth went dry at the thought. If that was coming off, then she wanted him to touch her breasts.

She sucked his lower lip into her mouth and rubbed the back of her hand over his chest. “ _Hgh –_ “ His left nipple lit up in sensation as her knuckles brushed it. God, he’d touched himself so many times, but he’d never done _this._ “Do you…”

“Like this.” She pulled her shirt and bra off, and Newt barely had time to look at her before she had his wrists in her hands, bringing his hands up to cup her breasts. “Want to?”

Did he want to? The blood had rushed from his head so quickly that he thought he might pass out on the spot, that was how much he wanted to. “Yes. _Please_.” He held her breasts for a second, marveling at the softness, then gently started rubbing her nipples.

Anathema squeaked and held his hands there. “Yes…there – gentler, yeah, like that.” He kept his thumbs going in slow circles and was gratified to see her nipples harden, poking against his fingers. “Fast learner.”

“I, uh.” _I try_ , he wanted to say, but his tongue was tied. Instead of talking, he kept going until she pushed him away – and that was when a relevant fact penetrated the fog in his brain. “I haven’t got a, you know. Anything.”

“Then we don’t have to do _that_ ,” Anathema said. She was panting, hair falling out of its ponytail and face gleaming with sweat. “There’s other stuff.”

Somehow, that made the whole thing even sexier. “Whatever you want,” Newt said. All he knew was that he was now practically bursting out of his jeans, and Anathema’s breasts were right in front of his face, so how could he _not_ plunge his face between them and use his mouth on her nipples?

The next stretch of time passed in a blur. Newt didn’t know how, but somehow they were both naked and Anathema was back on his lap, and she was guiding his hand – “Jesus,” he gasped. “Yes. Please, can I?” She was wet against his fingertips, and when he rested his head on her shoulder, he could _smell_ her. It made his head spin.

“Yeah, you can,” she said. Her breath came in puffs against his own shoulder as she let her forehead fall forward. “Okay, yeah, just part the – _oh,_ okay, right there. That’s the –“

“Clitoris,” said Newt. He _had_ gotten a good mark in his anatomy courses, after all, even if he was new to this. “Like this?” He stroked her with the pads of his second and third fingers, wishing he had something to grind against. This was something out of his wildest fantasies. “Am I doing okay?”

“ _Ngh._ Fine, just…keep going.” She grabbed his wrist and helped move his fingers, which was insanely sexy and just made Newt’s downstairs situation worse. “Like that. Fuck, I’m really turned on.”

Newt bit back a whimper. “Feels like it,” he said. “Think I can make you…” He trailed off, cheeks blooming even hotter at his inability to say the word in question.

Luckily, Anathema caught his meaning. “Yeah. Really soon.”

He kept rubbing. Within a few minutes, Anathema gasped and began to shake all over, tightening her grip on his wrist. “There…close…”

“Like this?”

“ _Fuck!_ ”

Newt had never seen a woman come in real life before, but he had to assume that was what was going on, even if it looked different from porn. This was about a thousand times hotter. “Wow,” he said as Anathema shivered and squeaked out little cries. “Are you okay?”

She finally subsided, teeth firmly planted in her bottom lip, and opened her eyes. “I’m fine,” she said, grinning and planting a kiss on him. “That was pretty good. Especially for your first time.”

“Thanks,” Newt said, unsure of what else to say. “I’m still, uh…”

“I know. Let me – how about this?” She wrapped her hand around his erection, and Newt hissed in a loud breath. Somehow, it felt so much better than when he touched himself. “Has anyone ever told you you’re really expressive?”

“Not…like this,” he choked out. He’d mostly been compared to Sheldon from _The Big Bang Theory_ , and sometimes also that guy from a TV program he’d never watched about a community college. “I – I told you I don’t have –“

Anathema kissed him again, longer and more passionately this time. “I can wash my hands,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. I _want_ to do this.”

He didn’t last very long. Granted, he hadn’t been expecting to, but that didn’t stop him from being embarrassed when he came just a few minutes in. “Sorry,” he said once he got his breath back, feeling the sweat cooling on his neck and back. The closet felt humid and stifling, but he didn’t want to leave. “I should’ve tried harder.”

“You were fine,” Anathema said, and got off his lap, grabbing an unopened box of wipes from a nearby shelf and pulling out a few to wipe her hands. He stood up and took some himself. “Seriously, better than fine. You made me feel really good.” She came back with the box and kissed his cheek. “Do you want to do that again sometime?”

“You _want_ to do that again?” Newt said before he could stop himself. “But I was rubbish!”

“I mean…” Anathema shrugged. “Is it really ‘rubbish’ if we both came?” Newt felt himself going red, and hoped he wasn’t too splotchy. “I like you. I’d like to see you again, if that’s what you want, too – what the hell is _that?_ ”

She was staring at his arse. Newt went hot and covered his tattoo with his hands. “Um, my mate did that for me,” he said. “I know it’s not great.”

“What is it?”

“Um. Dick Turpin,” he said. “English highwayman. I got him tattooed because everyone I know says my driving stops traffic.”

Anathema put her hands over her face and groaned. “God, that’s terrible.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she said with a laugh. “So. Another date sometime, yes or no?”

Newt reached for the nearest roll of paper towels and mopped up the sweat on his chest as surreptitiously as he could before wiping his own hands and pulling his shirt on. “Yeah. I mean, yes. I really would like that, Anathema.” She beamed, and he went on, heartened. “Only next time, maybe we could go somewhere? Do you like Indian food? There’s a really good place a few minutes from here, and they do a great chicken tikka masala.”

Anathema grabbed her bra and started to refasten it. “I love Indian food,” she said. “I love all kinds of food.” She smiled at him. “Don’t worry so much, okay? I’m sure that wherever we choose will be fine.”

He knew it was a bit strange to get a pep talk while he was mostly naked, but it reassured Newt anyway. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll try to be a bit less neurotic. You’re putting that sock on inside out.”

She laughed, pulling off the sock in question. “Well, what do you know. Maybe that’s a sign. Do you want to go again?”

Newt’s erection was abruptly back in the picture. “Yes, please.”

* * *

“Is this the lab, Doctor?” someone asked. “I was looking for a Doctor Fell.”

Ah, wonderful, a visitor. Aziraphale sighed and straightened up some of the papers on his desk. “In here,” he called.

“I know you’re there, Aziraphale.” Gabriel’s voice. Aziraphale’s stomach dropped to his feet. And then Gabriel himself was at the door to his office, with a nurse whom Aziraphale thought he vaguely recognized trailing behind him. All the affability was gone from Gabriel’s face now, leaving behind a stone mask. “Nurse Shadwell mentioned he wanted to have a look at your lab, and I decided to come along after I heard a few _suspicious_ things. Tell me, Aziraphale – what is _that?_ ” He motioned to Aziraphale’s computer. “You’d better be honest.”

Aziraphale turned his head to look at the screen, feeling rather like he should be in slow-motion with a mournful, movie-style dirge playing in the background. Adam Young’s sample was displayed in all its fluorescent glory, and worse yet, his name was on it. “An aortic biopsy,” he said.

“And _whose_ aortic biopsy,” said Gabriel, each word heavy and precise on his tongue, “might that be?”

Well, this would have happened sometime. Aziraphale didn’t know why he was being so fatalistic, but what was there to lose anymore? Crowley had left, he’d embarrassed himself in front of a potential student, and Gabriel could go fuck himself. “Adam Young’s,” he said. “I told you, I’ve discovered a novel autoimmune disease that he and Warlock Dowling share.”

“Oh, I know exactly who discovered this autoimmune disease,” said Gabriel. “Nice try, but you can’t protect Anthony Crowley any more than you can protect yourself. We’re all mature adults here – I’m sure you know what needs to happen.”

 _Crowley,_ Aziraphale thought. _Oh, God._ He never should have gotten involved in this – he should have reined Crowley in ages ago. He should have reined _himself_ in. This wasn’t all on Crowley; they’d both known what they were doing when they set their feet on this disastrous path. “Anthony Crowley has nothing to do with the research I perform,” he said, trying to sound as disinterested as possible. If Gabriel knew anything about how deep their friendship went, then Crowley would be ruined. “You won’t touch him.”

“Aziraphale,” said Gabriel, eyes narrowing, “I think we’re well past the point of you being able to tell me what I will or won’t do. You’re well within my jurisdiction as part of Internal Medicine. I don’t particularly care what excuses you come up with to hide behind the research title.”

“It’s not hiding,” Aziraphale said. “Dr. Jacobi is the department head here.”

“Dr. Jacobi knows,” Gabriel replied. “He’s no happier with any of this than I am.”

So Gabriel had really done it. He’d gone ahead and destroyed Aziraphale’s career – and for what? Money? Fortune? The satisfaction of ridding himself of a colleague? Aziraphale couldn’t quite believe he had ever thought Gabriel was a person worthy of being obeyed.

Crowley had the knowledge. Someone would be able to save those children. He really did have nothing left to lose.

“Oh,” he said, clearing his throat as he stood up. “Well… _fuck_ that.”

Gabriel took a step backwards, much to Aziraphale’s satisfaction. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t particularly like the idea of working in a hospital where the bottom line matters more than _children’s lives_ ,” Aziraphale said. He could practically hear Crowley’s voice cheering him on, could hear himself reciting the Hippocratic Oath so many years ago. “You want to take my lab, don’t you? Fine. Do it. Ruin me. I’ll be able to find some sort of job somewhere, but I won’t be party to a travesty like the handling of these cases any longer.”

“You’re…quitting?” Gabriel asked. He looked utterly wrong-footed – good.

“Yes.” Aziraphale took his coat off its peg, then picked up his briefcase. “I resign. Effective immediately, I presume.”

“Aziraphale –“

“I’d say don’t try to stop me, but I doubt you would anyway,” Aziraphale cut in. “Goodbye, Gabriel. Goodbye – Nurse Shadwell, is it?” The man nodded, looking stupefied. Good. “I think that the billing department know where to send my final paycheck, if I’m even going to receive it.”

He pushed past both men and out the door, the pneumatic mechanism whooshing closed behind him. “What’s this?” he heard Shadwell ask.

“I think that’s a Bunsen burner[5],” said Gabriel just before the door shut. “Don’t touch it.”

Aziraphale had no job anymore. He’d torpedoed his career. No one would ever hire him again after hearing Gabriel’s undoubtedly twisted version of the story. But strangely enough, he didn’t care.

Shadwell or Gabriel or whoever wanted it could tear down his reputation, everything he’d built on, and turn it into scrap for all he cared, he decided as he went down the corridor. If he had lost everything, then he had gained immeasurable freedom in return.

* * *

[1] Relapsing-remitting diseases come and go rather than causing constant symptoms.

[2] Some of the modern treatments for autoimmune disease are formulations of antibodies against some of the inflammatory proteins. They’re very expensive, but often very effective.

[3] Depletes the cells in the bone marrow, which can be used as chemotherapy or immunosuppressive agents, or help prepare patients for bone marrow transplants.

[4] Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as naproxen or ibuprofen.

[5] A device attached to a gas line that can be used to strike a flame in a lab, usually for heat-dependent chemical reactions.


	5. i willed my body to science (but i'm afraid they turned it down)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go up in flames, both literally and figuratively, as a single spark finally begins to change the status quo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to meinposhbastard for beta-reading!
> 
> Yes, Crowley is practicing medicine while (slightly) drunk in this chapter - don't try this at home, kids.

It was raining. Perfect.

Crowley had been nursing the same drink and watching episode after episode of Golden Girls pretty much from the moment he got home, and the sight of the rain pounding down on his windows only made him feel like his mood was justified. Not even Betty White and company could make him feel any better, and although the booze was making him feel warm, he didn’t think that having more than one hard drink would be good for his general state of health.

 _There is no ‘our side’, Crowley. It’s over._ So that was how things went down, not with a bang but with a whimper. Not with a triumphant scientific discovery, but with two dead kids and the wheels of assembly-line medicine grinding out as usual.

What was he even doing here? He might as well go back to England and live with his parents. Apart from Aziraphale, his mother was one of the few people who understood him. And she _had_ always said that the way people were supposed to live apart from their families was a travesty…

The knock on the door pulled Crowley out of his musings. “In,” he said, and took another gulp of his something-and-Coke. “Door’s unlocked.” He’d been too exhausted to even push the lock shut when he came in.

He heard the door bang open and shut, and two low voices muttering to each other as they got closer. “Hastur,” said Crowley as the sources of the muttering came into the living room. “Ligur. What’s up?”

“Bad news, Crowley,” Ligur said. “Have you been cooking the books?”

“Have I – _what?_ ” Crowley scrambled up from the couch and clicked the TV off, heart thudding. “What are you talking about?” The hospital was on to him to _some_ extent, but if Hastur and Ligur knew, it had to be bad. It had to have escalated.

“We heard from our friends in Billing,” said Hastur. “You did something funny with the bills for that boy from Oxford. They’ve brought the hospital lawyers in.”

Crowley squawked. His drink sloshed in his hand, and before he knew it, there was a shout from Ligur and a stain down the front of his shirt. “Oh, fuck,” Crowley said. “Shit, shit, shit! I’m so sorry.”

Ligur growled in frustration, which Crowley didn’t blame him for, and pulled his wet shirt away from his belly to look at it. “This is a white shirt!”

“That’s _silk_ ,” Hastur chimed in, looking and sounding utterly horrified. “Do you have any idea how much that cost, you bastard? We’re not all posh like you!”

“I’m sorry, I really am,” Crowley said. “I didn’t mean to. Did you want to borrow a shirt?” It would be a sacrifice, that was for sure. Ligur was about Aziraphale’s size, so there wouldn’t be any problems with finding something that fit, but the last time he’d seen Ligur shirtless, they’d all been at the employee gym and Hastur hadn’t stopped glaring at him until he made an excuse and got in the shower.

“Piss off,” said Ligur. “I’ll take care of it at home. You’d probably just tear it.”

“I know how to take care of fabric.”

Both Hastur and Ligur gave him the stink-eye. “I said I can do it,” Ligur said. “Anyway, that’s not why we came over.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m in deep shit,” Crowley said. His stomach felt like someone was squeezing it. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“You’re not just _in deep shit_ , you’re on the news,” said Hastur. “Guy I talked to said they’re putting the whole thing on telly.”

“Pull the other one,” said Crowley, and reached for the remote. No way was he important enough to be on the news, even if they were going to sack him.

He turned on the television, and flames roared before his eyes. It took him a second to parse the image, and then as he took in the ambulances and fire trucks, the penny dropped. The hospital. The hospital was on fire – somehow. “What the _fuck?_ ”

“Shut up and listen,” Hastur said, smacking him on the shoulder. “They’re talking.”

Crowley shut his mouth and focused his attention on the screen. “ – attributed to a mishap with a Bunsen burner,” the news anchor was saying. “Do you have any comment on the matter, Dr. Evangelatos?”

The camera panned over to Gabriel – _of course_ – who looked surprisingly disheveled. His hair was all over the place, and were those scorch marks on his jacket? “Let’s not take attention away from the real issue here,” he said. “I’ve been informed that the discrepancies in billing we discussed can be attributed to either Aziraphale Fell or another doctor we’re investigating. The fire in Dr. Fell’s lab was an unfortunate accident.”

Crowley dropped his glass and distantly heard it shatter on the floor. “Oh, God,” he said. “ _Aziraphale_.”

“That’s your friend,” said Hastur. “His lab’s on fire?”

Crowley was already out of his chair and pulling on his coat before he even realized he was doing it. “I have to go,” he said. The lab was on fire and Aziraphale was still at work and the place was going to burn down with him in it. “I, uh.” He fumbled out his keys with shaking hands. “Can you go out ahead of me? I need to lock up.”

Hastur and Ligur left without making a fuss, thank something. Crowley jammed the key in the door and locked it, then ran.

He wasn’t quite sure how he’d gotten to the hospital, only that suddenly he was there, pushing through the enormous crowd and tasting the rising smoke on the back of his tongue. “Let me through,” he said, and then louder, “Let me through!” He pushed people aside as he made his way blindly through the milling mass.

The door nearest Aziraphale’s lab was open, but blocked off with police tape. “Sir, you can’t go in there,” a paramedic said as he approached, catching his arm. “Is this your lab?”

“Do I _look_ like I work in a lab?” Crowley snarled, yanked his hand away, and shouldered past the last few people in his way to get in.

The hallway was thick with smoke that tightened Crowley’s throat and made his eyes tear right away. “Aziraphale!” he shouted. Heat rose, didn’t it? On the strength of something he thought he remembered from television, he dropped to his knees and crawled down the length of the hallway until he got to Aziraphale’s door. “Aziraphale! Where the fuck are you, you idiot?” He coughed and ducked his head, using the collar of his T-shirt as a makeshift mask over his nose and mouth, then stood up on legs that suddenly didn’t want to hold him.

Crowley couldn’t see anyone in the lab, just flames roaring on all sides. “Aziraphale!” He wouldn’t have left work for anything – he was here for the rest of the night – “ _Aziraphale!_ ” He fought past an overturned chair blocking his way to Aziraphale’s office. If he was here, if he was alive…if he _wasn’t_ , Crowley didn’t think he could – he wouldn’t –

The air was so hot that it seared his lungs, and then suddenly it wasn’t. There was a sound of breaking glass, and then a jet of water knocked Crowley off his feet, throwing him against the floor so hard that he saw stars.

No, not stars. A piece of fabric fluttered through his field of vision: cream, soft-looking, probably wool. Aziraphale’s jumper.

“Someone killed my best friend,” Crowley said. Rasped. “ _Bastards!_ ”

He was going to find whoever thought it was a good idea to strike a match, or a Bunsen burner or whatever, and tear them limb from limb. Heaven and Hell could both go fuck themselves, if they even existed – this was justified homicide.

People were shouting at him through the window, and Aziraphale was dead. He had to get out. 

* * *

Aziraphale had gone to the cafeteria for one last coffee and pastry before he made his final exit, having hypothesized that Gabriel wouldn’t think to terminate him soon enough to cancel his employee discount yet. He had been correct, and the blueberry scone and coffee with cream were as delicious as the high of knowing he was right.

When he left, the area outside the hospital was pandemonium.

“Sir!” Someone accosted him and shoved a microphone in his face. “Are you a doctor here?”

Aziraphale looked down and verified that he was still wearing his white coat. Ah, well – the hospital wouldn’t miss it. “I most certainly am a doctor,” he said. “May I help you?”

“Doctor, what do you think of this situation?”

So Gabriel had talked, or maybe that Shadwell character. He _really_ had nothing left to lose. “I think it’s a disgrace,” he said. “This healthcare system is broken and corrupt. How do you justify allowing one child with a potentially treatable condition to languish and die while the other receives the treatment he needs? It beggars belief.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” said Aziraphale. “It’s a bloody scam.” He never swore in public, but desperate times and desperate cases called for equally desperate measures. “The English system has its problems, but at least everyone in Great Britain has at least a fighting chance of surviving a heart condition!” He straightened himself up to his full height, not-particularly-impressive as it might be. “Did that answer your question? Do you know what I _think of the situation_ now?”

The man in front of him swallowed, both visibly and audibly. “Doctor, I, uh, I meant what do you think of the fire in the hospital?”

Aziraphale took a step back, and focused for the first time on the full scene in front of him – including the news crew. _Shit,_ he thought.

“Gosh,” he said, “am I on television?”

* * *

Crowley staggered out of the door and into the rain, coughing hard and feeling so overheated that he didn’t know how the raindrops didn’t steam when they hit him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he noted that the inside of his chest felt hot and irritated, but not scorched. Probably not a lot of smoke damage – more was the pity. He deserved whatever the world decided to throw at him after he let Aziraphale die.

“Sir!” It was the paramedic again, guiding him to sit down on a nearby bench and putting an oxygen mask on him. “You could have lung damage. I need you to stay here.”

He coughed a few more times, inhaling lungfuls of oxygen. It eased the pain enough that he could think clearly. “No lung damage.”

“You don’t know that. What were you thinking?”

Crowley felt something squeeze inside his chest, completely unrelated to the smoke. “He’s dead,” he said.

She looked like she didn’t know what to say. Good; he didn’t know, either. Hell, he didn’t know what he was going to _do._ How did you live when the person you were in love with, the person you never let yourself touch, died in an accident? The media didn’t even come close to the horrible, crushing guilt accumulating in his belly. “That’s terrible,” the paramedic finally said, draping a blanket around his shoulders. “You need to stay here until I can get a doctor to look at you.”

“I _am_ a doctor,” Crowley said. He was going to be sacked anyway; why should he stay here, where Aziraphale’s body was going up in flames? “I’m fine.” He stood up, the blanket slipping away, and pulled the oxygen mask off his face. “Say I left AMA[1] if you have to. I’ve got to get out of here.” He coughed again, but the urge was transient.

“I can’t let you –“

“ _I can’t stay_ ,” Crowley said, and left as fast as he could go without breaking into an outright run. He heard the paramedic calling after him, but he soon lost himself in the crowd. There was no way she would find him now, and stop him from getting absolutely fucking plastered.

He started towards the parking garage, paused, and then turned to head to the subway. Memories were coming back now, and he remembered he hadn’t driven here. The train it was, then, or – even better, the bar nearby.

The bartender looked askance at him, but didn’t object when he asked for Talisker, thank fuck. And then a shot, and another, and the bottle appeared at his table, and things were looking…fuzzy. Just a little. Better, too. The bottle was only a little empty and he was already feeling just great.

“Didn’t mean to get into this,” he heard himself say. “Jus’ minding my own business one day…choosing my A-levels. Going for the sciences. Then next thing I know…” He took another swig. “I’m knee-deep in this shit. Sick kids. Unpaid bills. Not mine, ‘course.” His lower lip trembled without his permission. “I…I hate this. ‘s’my fault.”

“Crowley?”

“Hn.” Crowley lifted his listing head and squinted at the light-colored shape in front of him.

“Crowley!” The shape reached across the table and touched the hand that wasn’t curled around his glass. “Oh, Crowley, you’re covered in smoke – were you – goodness, you must have been caught in the fire! Crowley, my dear, you _must_ get treatment.”

He shook his head. The shape sounded like Aziraphale, and almost looked like him, too. Stuipd imagination. “I’m fine. Fine, didn’t…” That was when his cough decided to come back for a second, although maybe that was the alcohol. “Nothing happened to me. I…I lost my best friend.”

The shape stilled. “I’m sorry to hear that,” it said, distant and almost cold. _Ghost,_ Crowley thought, feeling his brain squeeze in his head. Aziraphale’s ghost had come to visit him at his lowest moment. How appropriate was _that_ for the worst day of his life? The worst day of Aziraphale’s life, too. Worst day of his death.

Crowley gulped down the tears threatening to rise to the surface and pushed his glass forward. “You’re really an angel now,” he said. “Perfect…dead angel. I wish you weren’t. Never told you anything.” He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “I’m ssstupid!”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

“I was there, angel,” Crowley said between hiccups. “Fire in your lab. You wouldn’t have left it. S-sssso…you’re dead.”

The ghost leaned across the table, and there was suddenly a pressure on his hand, almost like Aziraphale was holding it. If only that were true. “Crowley, I’m not dead,” he said. “I promise you, I’m alive. I got out before the fire started.”

Crowley wiped his eyes. “H-how?”

“Gabriel,” said Aziraphale, or his shade, or whatever was haunting the other end of the table. “He found out, and he came to sack me. But I quit before he could do it, and I stormed out. The fire was mistakenly set after I left, or so I hear.”

“…what?”

“I promise it’s true,” Aziraphale said. “Look, I even have…” He hefted his briefcase. “I’ve got all these lovely papers with me. Do you think I’d have left them in my lab? They’re written by –“

“Agnes Nutter!” Crowley nearly shrieked. That was Aziraphale’s briefcase, right down to the battered handles he’d worn down by hours and hours of holding it on the train. And he had never let anyone else in the world touch it, not even Crowley. “You saved it? You – you’ve got them?”

“Yes!” said Aziraphale. That pissed-off tone of his voice could belong to no one else, especially not a ghost. “I – oh, God, Crowley, I let you believe I was dead. You went into the lab for me, you inhaled smoke, you _darling_ idiot, come here –“

Crowley didn’t know who initiated the hug, but somehow he was up on his feet and they were hugging anyway. Aziraphale radiated a comforting heat in stark contrast to the searing, scorching pain of the air in his lab. “You came back for me,” Aziraphale said into Crowley’s shoulder. “We were fighting and you still came back for me.”

One of the barflies shouted for them to get a room, and Crowley extended his middle finger in a nonspecific direction, just to cover all the potential catcallers. “Had to,” he replied. “You’re my best friend.”

Aziraphale squeezed him one more time, hard enough to push a cough out of Crowley, and pulled back so that their faces were inches apart. “Crowley, I…I’d like to…” His breath was warm. “Could I…?”

Crowley jerked back. Aziraphale wanted to kiss him, he was _going_ to kiss him – and he couldn’t. His body felt full to bursting with the desire to reciprocate the affection he could practically feel coming off his friend, but he didn’t deserve it and he never would. “Aziraphale,” he said. “We’ve got things to fix.”

A light went on in Aziraphale’s eyes. He pulled away fully and straightened his collar, which was now smudged with soot – Crowley realized it must have been from his shirt. “Yes,” he said. “We have, haven’t we? Those lives won’t save themselves.”

* * *

“Shadwell,” said Tracy, “I can’t deal with you if you’re going to just sit there and look at me.”

Shadwell shifted on the bench they were sharing. It had been an hour since the fire alarm first went off and what looked like most of the hospital staff evacuated, and he had stuck to her side the entire time. Tracy suspected she would have gone off at him long before if she hadn’t had so much experience with so many difficult patients. “The fire,” he said.

“Yes, I know, there’s a fire,” Tracy answered. “Did you hit your head?” She’d caught him running out through a completely different exit; she could only assume that he’d wandered off to use the loo and lost track of where he was again.

He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut and hunching forward until his chest nearly met his knees. Now his ailment looked like something else entirely. “Shadwell!” Tracy waved her hand in front of his face. “Does your chest hurt?”

“No, no. I wish it did!” He looked up, anguish written all over his face. “The fire. What if…what if it was my fault?”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

“I was _there_ ,” Shadwell nearly wailed. “In the lab. I used my lighter, and I think I turned on the burner – I was just curious, I promise ye, and I thought I turned it off…but. What if I didn’t?” His hands began to shake. “It’s my fault. The fire’s my fault!”

Tracy realized she was staring and shook her head. “Shadwell, I…” This wasn’t something she’d ever expected when she applied to study nursing. “Why am I even surprised?”

“I’ve _ruint_ the hospital!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tracy told him, a little more snappishly than she intended. “You haven’t done anything but caused some smoke damage, and they’ve put the fire out. No one died. No one’s even damaged except for the firefighters, and they signed up for it.”

“But I –“

“If you caused the fire, and mind you, it could have been anything,” said Tracy, “what’s most important is _patient lives_. The stuffed shirts up on top of the pyramid are rolling in it. They can spare some to fix a lab, if that’s what’s important to them. If not, well.” She shrugged. Thirty-plus years of nursing had taught her to be pragmatic. “A few soot stains never hurt anyone.”

Shadwell’s lip quivered. “I should be sacked.”

“I’m not sacking you,” Tracy said. “If you want punishment, stew in your own guilt for a while. That should be bad enough.” She smacked his shoulder. “Go find your patients and see how they’re getting along out here. Ridiculous old man.”

Her tone was far more affectionate than she intended, but it had enough of a calming effect on Shadwell that he got up as ordered, and that was good enough for her.

* * *

Aziraphale watched as Crowley put his pager back in his trouser pocket. “I can’t believe they’re still paging you,” he said.

“I haven’t officially been sacked yet, that’s why,” Crowley said. “They probably want to make a circus out of it. Fuck, these kids…I don’t care what happens to me. I have to help them.” His face had gone so pale that Aziraphale thought he could see freckles on the bridge of his nose. “Go over it again?” 

“Go in the back entrance,” Aziraphale recited, “go upstairs, find the Youngs and the Dowlings, tell them their options, do whatever needs to be done, get out. Did I miss anything?” How the hell was Crowley this coherent after all he’d drunk? It had to be his medical autopilot taking over.

“Nope. I’ll take the Dowlings, you take the Youngs.” Crowley fumbled out his phone and sat down a little unsteadily on the bench, thankfully hidden from the view of anyone outside the hospital by a thick hedge. “Okay if I make a call?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “About the boys, I take it?”

“Yeah, I need to get the nurse. I know he won’t talk.” Crowley flicked his thumb down the screen and jabbed at it, then brought the phone to his ear. “Eric,” he said a moment later, “good. This is Crowley. Have people gone back in yet?” He slumped in visible relief and mouthed _Fire’s out_. “No, I was talking to someone else – listen. We’ve got a situation. The kids are barely stable and getting worse. Can you do something for me?” He paused. “Because I’m about to be sacked, that’s why. Look…no, seriously, I know what it is. This is autoimmune, not cardiac.”

“Tell him about the IF,” Aziraphale whispered.

Crowley shook his head violently and waved him off. “I’ll take the hit,” he said. “They’re already blaming me for everything else. Are you writing this down? Good.” He cleared his throat. “Ring whoever’s on call. High-dose IV methylprednisolone[2] for the kids, as much as they can handle. Then they need to be started on DMARDs – no, _you_ listen, did I fucking stutter? Page someone from immunology once they’ve stabilized and tell them what I said. I’ll pay.” He ran his hand down his face. “Sorry, not your fault. Just believe me, I know what I’m doing. You’re a good guy, Eric.”

Aziraphale watched as Crowley nodded a few more times, muttered a hasty goodbye, and ended the call. “We’ll split up, then,” he said. His stomach twisted at the thought of the ruin his laboratory must have turned into, but this wasn’t the time.

“Yeah,” Crowley said, muffling a few more coughs into his fist. “You go first – go _now_. If they haven’t deactivated your card and everything yet, they’ll do it soon.” He moved a little closer. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said firmly. “Children are always worth it.” He got up from the bench and looked down at Crowley, noticing for the first time that he had a cowlick on the back of his head. “I’ll meet up with you again if we can’t find each other after. Where?”

“My flat.”

Aziraphale nodded and turned on his heel, heading for the back door. He could feel Crowley’s gaze burning into his back, but successfully resisted the urge to turn around. If he failed, then he would just end up kissing him, and they’d lose their patients as well as their jobs.

His card still worked on the back door, thank goodness. Aziraphale went in and ran as fast as he could up the flights of stairs to cardiac intensive care – not as fast as he could have, perhaps, and due to more than just his age. He was panting by the time he reached his destination, and he silently cursed his lack of fitness as he headed towards Adam Young’s hospital room.

A nurse came out, pulling a mobile blood pressure machine behind her, and Aziraphale was barely able to wait for her to get out of sight before he opened the door. Deirdre and Arthur Young both looked up as he entered. “Mr. and Mrs. Young,” he said, hoping his panting and sweaty underarms weren’t too obvious, “I know what’s wrong with your son.”

“What?” Deirdre said, followed half a moment later by her husband. “Wait, you do?”

“I have some laboratory proof that this is an autoimmune disease,” said Aziraphale. “It’s nothing that’s been shown in the scientific literature. I haven’t much time to tell you about it, but I think maybe, _maybe_ Adam can get better if he receives a stem cell transplant. Bone marrow transplant,” he added off their confused looks. “There are other medications for autoimmune diseases, but if he can be _cured_ , a more invasive treatment might work. Steroids haven’t worked for him, we know that much.”

“But he’s a little boy,” Deirdre protested. “He can’t have one of those diseases.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “I know it sounds strange, but these things can happen to anyone,” he said. “The stress of Adam’s birthday might have set him off. The other boy here –“ who cared about breaking HIPAA when concerned parents were involved and he was sacked anyway? “ – has been having episodes since he was small, but he lives in a more stressful environment than Adam does.” He paused. “I know this will be hard to believe, especially without well-known tests. I should also tell you that my higher-ups don’t like my research on the subject, and I’ve been…well, unofficially sacked for it.”

Deirdre looked him in the face hard enough to make him uncomfortable as Arthur squeezed both her hands. Dealing with such a surfeit of parental emotions was why he preferred to spend time in the lab. “I don’t care if you’re sacked, if you’re right. _Are you?_ ”

Aziraphale swallowed hard. “I…I think I am, yes. I’m sure of it.”

She nodded, and Arthur cleared his throat. “Will our bone marrow work, Dr. Fell?”

“Likely not,” Aziraphale said, hating how much their faces fell as he shook his head. “He’s adopted, correct? It’s highly unlikely that either of you would be a match.” He reached out awkwardly, just short of touching both of the Youngs’ hands, before going on. “But there are things we can do. There are registries I can put him on, and sometimes a publicity stunt can work. He’s small, and – and he’s white, if you don’t mind my saying so. No offense meant. But that might get him a better chance.”

Deirdre and Arthur looked at each other, and Deirdre gave a tight nod. “What about the other boy?” she asked. “Is he getting the same offer?”

“Yes, of course. My colleague is speaking to them right now.” Aziraphale momentarily squeezed his eyes shut and prayed to the God he’d been raised with that Crowley had successfully made it up here. “You’re getting equal treatment, I promise you.”

The Youngs exchanged another one of those long parental looks. “Test us,” said Deirdre.

“Test us both,” Arthur added, and began to roll up his sleeves. “If there’s any chance we can save him, I want to take it. And…and the other boy. If I’m a match for him…”

“Or me,” Deirdre said.

“You don’t have to do that!” Aziraphale protested. “His parents are related to him by blood. They may well be matches for him. You don’t need to volunteer your own stem cells.”

Sometimes Aziraphale wondered at the stiff upper lip that his fellow Brits liked to pretend was a national characteristic, but sometimes…well, sometimes he remembered just why everyone had gotten through the Second World War, huddling in tunnels and comforting each other. “Of course,” he said, hoping he could find the blood-draw kits without trouble. Bless it, he should have gotten familiar with this ward a long time ago. “But if we’re going to do this, I’d best get a bit of a wiggle on.”

* * *

Anathema stumbled out of the basement, with Newt in tow, to utter chaos.

“Hey!” She grabbed a passing nurse with one hand and cupped the other around her ear. “What the hell’s going on?”

The nurse looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “The fire,” she said. “The lab fire? Where have you even _been?_ How did you not hear the fire alarm?”

Anathema thought of what Newt had been doing with his mouth during the time the fire alarms had to have been going off, flushed hot, and cleared her throat. “I was asleep,” she said. “I’m a heavy sleeper. Sorry I bothered you.”

“It’s fine.”

“Hey,” Anathema said as the nurse turned to go, “whose lab was it?”

“Fall something,” she returned over her shoulder. “Wait, no, Fell.”

Newt came up behind her. “Dr. Fell’s lab caught on fire?” he said, horrified. “That’s awful!”

“Wait, you know Dr. Fell?”

“Yeah, he came down once to bring cake to Radiology.”

That went more with Dr. Fell’s appearance than with his mannerisms, but Anathema decided not to comment on it. People had hidden depths, after all. “I can’t believe we missed a _fire_ ,” she said. She’d heard the alarms go off before, and they were loud. Maybe that was why the closet had been abandoned; it was a safety risk not to be able to hear any kind of alert. She’d have to tell Dr. Crowley the next time she saw him.

“I can’t believe Dr. Fell’s lost his lab,” Newt said.

 _I can’t believe it’s not butter,_ Anathema thought. Oh, God, she needed more sleep. “I’m sure they can rebuild it,” she said. “Shit. I need to check EMR[3] and make sure my patient list hasn’t changed.” She fished her pager out and verified that no one had needed her while she was in the throes of pleasure. “Do you mind if I head off to one of the computers?”

“Sure,” Newt said. “I mean, no, I don’t mind. I should probably make sure I didn’t forget to clock out after my shift. I forget to do that sometimes.”

They pushed their way through the clumps of people until Anathema found a relatively quiet ward – pediatrics, she thought – with an available computer. “You first,” she said. “Don’t want payroll on your back, right?”

“Yeah, thanks.” Newt took over at the computer. “I should warn you,” he said as he typed, “I’m crap with computers. I’m just glad I haven’t shut down any of the expensive stuff yet.”

“How are you a radiology tech again?”

“I don’t know. It’s like it’s congenital or something.” He squinted at the screen. “Okay, good, I clocked out. Your turn.” He pressed the logout button.

The screen went dark, and just for a second, Anathema swore she saw the overhead lights flicker. “Jesus,” she said, and prodded the mouse. Nothing happened. “Newt, what did you do?”

“ _Bugger_ ,” Newt said, and turned to face her, expression apologetic. “I did warn you.”

* * *

As Aziraphale began to roll up Deirdre’s sleeve for her blood draw, a flicker of motion caught his eye. He looked at the computer monitor set up in the room and caught the last moment before it sputtered and died. “What in the world?” he muttered.

“Is something wrong?” Deirdre asked.

“No, no, I just – I think the system has gone down. It’s happened before.” Usually when the hospital was switching to a new medical records software, but this one had been in use for…it had to be two years. An outage was always blessed inconvenient for everyone involved. “Drat. I have no idea how I’m going to get your tubes labeled now.” He tied the rubber tourniquet around Deirdre’s arm anyway and began palpating for a vein. “This is a bit of –“

Then it hit him.

“This is _wonderful_ ,” Aziraphale breathed, and inserted the needle almost on autopilot. Deirdre flinched, and in the bed, Adam made a tiny noise as he slumbered on. “This might buy us the time we need. I mean, it’s not good that people can’t access the patient records, but…” He needed to shut his mouth before he shoved his foot any farther into it. “Have you got a pen or a felt-tip or something?”

Arthur reached into his pocket (which, Aziraphale noticed with a strange sort of delight, was lined with a pocket protector) and pulled out a Sharpie. “Will this do?”

“Yes, thank you!” Aziraphale took the pen with his free hand, wedged it between his elbow and his side, and finished drawing the tubes. Quickly, he wrote the Youngs’ names, the date, _HLA **[4]**,_ and _CCU **[5]** _on the empty paper labels of each tube. “I think I can find _someone_ to run this downstairs for me.”

Arthur rubbed at the spot where Aziraphale had drawn his blood a few minutes before. “Thank you, Dr. Fell,” he said. “We can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done.”

“This was a long time coming,” Aziraphale told him. “Not only because of Adam. I mean, he’s very important, and this case was what led me to perform my research. But if not him, then this nonsense would have happened to someone else without the right sort of American insurance.” Both Youngs were nodding. “Okay, you see what I mean. Good. I didn’t want to cause offense.”

“You didn’t,” said Deirdre. “Will we have the results soon, Dr. Fell?”

“I truly don’t know,” Aziraphale told her, putting the tubes back into their foam carrier. “This is rather under the table, you understand.” _I’ll be lucky not to be sued on top of sacked,_ he thought, and tried to ignore the chill down his spine. “Good luck. I really do mean that.”

Deirdre took Arthur’s hand. “You, too. Just – thank you.”

Aziraphale nodded and peeked out the door. Seeing a nurse stop at another room on her way down the hall, he jogged away as quickly and quietly as he could. Oh, he was never going to get the sweat stains out. Gabriel’s ‘insurance risk’ comment suddenly came back to him – maybe he should have started to exercise, at least.

“Angel!”

“Wha –“ Before he could even finish the word, he was pulled sideways into a linen closet. “Crowley?”

“Angel, thank…well, thank something,” Crowley said. “Did you get permission?”

Aziraphale huffed. “Yes, as you would have seen if you hadn’t grabbed me like that. I almost spilled my blood!”

“Your…oh.” Crowley looked down at his carrier of blood. “Great. That’s – that’s amazing, Aziraphale, really!”

“Yes, it is,” Aziraphale said. If his career was finished, he was at least going to allow himself a bit of pride. “What about the Dowlings?”

Crowley sighed. Aziraphale felt it ripple through the air between them. “They said yes, too,” he said. “I’ve already got the blood sent off with Eric. He didn’t ask questions, thank fuck. They’re contacting their relatives to see if they’re matches, too. Putting out a general publicity call.”

“Good. The Youngs are all right with that, too.”

“That’s –“ Crowley cut himself off with a shiver. Aziraphale saw sweat shining on his forehead, even though the air conditioning always felt close to freezing. Maybe it was the drink. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. I can’t believe they’re _letting_ us do this. If we go to prison, at least we helped a few patients, right?” His tone climbed higher, sounding closer to manic by the second. “At least we did that!”

“Crowley,” said Aziraphale, “you’re shaking.” He reached out to touch Crowley’s forehead, but Crowley jerked away. “Crowley?” 

“Not the right time, angel,” Crowley said. “Get…get your blood out, all right? Give it to me. I’ll leave it for Eric again. He’ll be back soon.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Crowley nodded hard. “I’ve got to stick around long enough to make sure Adam and Warlock stabilize. I put in the orders for the heavy stuff. Don’t know if they’ll feel better right away, or, you know, at all. Got to try, though.”

“I don’t much like the idea of you staying here while there are people out for your blood,” said Aziraphale. “You ought to go home. They’ll ring you if something bad happens, surely?”

“I could say the same thing for you,” Crowley rejoined. “Gabe’s thrown you out, hasn’t he? You’re no safer than I am. I just hope I managed to keep Billing sniffing around me, not you.”

Aziraphale folded his arms. “I’m not going to lie,” he said. “If they ask me, I plan to tell them the truth, Crowley. We were both in on this. You may have done most of…whatever happened with the bills, but I was the one who used laboratory resources against orders.”

Crowley sighed. “I didn’t bilk insurance companies, at least,” he said. “That’s a point in my favor. The Youngs don’t have any here.”

“It’s a shame,” Aziraphale said. A _fucking_ shame. This system killed people. He couldn’t believe there was ever a time when he quivered at the thought of being sacked because he’d accidentally treated a 9/11 responder without taking her information. He supposed he wasn’t the same man he was back then. “I – I should get my blood out. Er, not mine. This blood.” He jiggled the tray, then stopped as he saw things slosh. “You said Eric will take it?”

“Yeah. I can take it out there for you, angel. You’re not supposed to be here.”

Aziraphale scoffed. “Neither are you.”

“ _You’ve_ been officially fired,” Crowley pointed out. “I haven’t yet. I’ve got plausible deniability.” He inhaled sharply and coughed over his shoulder.

Aziraphale had to admit that he had a point. He also didn’t want Crowley sticking around here any longer than necessary, with that cough. “What do you want me to do, then?” he asked. “Just stand in this closet until you come back for me?”

“Give me two minutes,” Crowley said, “and then come out. You can get back to your flat from there.”

“No,” said Aziraphale, and grabbed his arms. Crowley couldn’t pull away without risking dropping the blood, and he knew Crowley would never do that, not for something this important. “Crowley, we…there are things we need to talk about. I’m not about to slink off to my flat and hide away while you face consequences.”

“You’ll face consequences no matter where you go,” Crowley protested. “You should at least have a break for a few hours, or a day, or – or however long.”

Heat welled in Aziraphale’s chest, burning through to his back like something far more sinister than emotion. “I’m not doing this without you,” he said, and squeezed Crowley’s shoulders harder. Crowley made to twist away from him. “No. No, we’re not doing this anymore. I don’t know why you pull away every time I want to be close to you – “ _more than friends_ , his mind whispered like a traitorous schoolgirl – “but we’re talking about it. Really talking. And I’m going to take care of you, because that fire was in _my_ lab. That means your coughing and your clothes are my fault.”

Crowley’s face went pink, then red. Aziraphale watched as that beautiful flush crept up his neck to his face and ears, darkening as it went. “You, uh…you…why do you want…” He cleared his throat loudly. “I guess we can talk. Uh. Yeah. That’s all right. So, er, where do you want to talk?”

Aziraphale let go of his shoulders. He’d been squeezing hard, he suddenly realized, and Crowley was so thin – he could easily bruise him if he wasn’t careful. “Why don’t we come back to my flat, my dear?” he suggested. “We could have something to drink. Not alcohol.” Crowley winced. “Not that there’s anything wrong with alcohol – I didn’t mean to suggest that. I simply think we’d do better talking with clear heads.”

Crowley rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, okay. Sounds good, angel.” He looked up, but avoided Aziraphale’s gaze, instead craning his neck to look over his shoulder. “I can hear people out there. Let me go, will you? I have to see if my patients are all right. Er, our patients.”

“Yes, of course,” Aziraphale said, moving to let him by.

Crowley darted out the door. Aziraphale peeked quickly through the crack and saw a flurry of people moving around, just as Crowley suspected. He shut the door and leaned against it, closing his eyes. Lord, the things they’d gotten themselves into.

After a few minutes, he crept out of the closet and maneuvered himself down the length of the hallway wall like a spy in a bad film. But then, this whole situation was getting to be like a bad film, wasn’t it? He certainly hadn’t anticipated anything like this when he applied to work here, but if he’d stayed in England –

Someone grabbed his arm, and he yelped, then clapped his hand over his mouth. “Wh…what…?” Gabriel hadn’t found him already, surely.

“Dr. Fell, thank goodness I found you,” said the nurse at his side. She had bright orange hair and her nametag said ‘Tracy,’ and he thought he’d seen her the last time he was up here. “Do you know where Dr. Crowley is?”

“He’d gone to see his patients, the last I saw him,” said Aziraphale, trying to repress a blush of his own. If she or anyone else knew they’d bogarted the closet for their own clandestine purposes, they would assume the worst and then both he and Crowley would be doubly done for. “Why? Is something wrong?”

Tracy leaned in close, hand still on his arm. “ _The hospital’s lawyers are here,_ ” she hissed in his ear. “They’re looking for Dr. Crowley. I told them he’d gone off-shift. Got told he should ring them back at his earliest convenience.” She rolled her eyes. “What’s he done?”

“N-nothing?”

She didn’t look convinced. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it was for a good cause,” she said. “Find him. Have him turn off his mobile.”

“What if the children –“

“Adam and Warlock have stabilized,” she cut in. “They’ve had their methylprednisolone and there’s something going on with DMARDs – I didn’t catch it. I assume Dr. Crowley’s got something to do with it. Anyway, you’d better find him.” She fixed him with a frightening gaze. “We like Dr. Crowley around here.”

“So do I.”

He had just turned to go when she stopped him again. “Dr. Fell, I’m sorry about your lab.”

Aziraphale swallowed hard. He was going to break down about this later, he knew, but he couldn’t do it now. “Thank you,” he whispered, and took off in the direction he’d seen Crowley go.

He almost passed right by him in his hurry, but Crowley’s hair tipped him off. “Crowley! Thank goodness!” Aziraphale said. “We’ve got to go. _Now_.”

“The kids –“

“They’re fine,” said Aziraphale. “Stable, I mean. There are people looking for you.” He raised his eyebrows at Crowley and hoped desperately that he would take the hint. “Tracy asked me – er, told me to tell you to leave. And turn off your mobile. They’ve got everything covered here.”

Crowley paused for a moment, looking torn, but nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Back the way we came, then.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale took Crowley’s arm as gently as he could. “Let’s get out of here. You don’t need any more of this today.”

Crowley lowered his head and let Aziraphale lead him out the door, down the stairs, and to the train station, and he didn’t say a word.

* * *

[1] AMA = against medical advice. If a patient wants to leave and the doctor doesn’t think it’s advisable, legally they can’t be kept. It has to be confirmed that they’re leaving AMA.

[2] Heavy-duty steroid. You don’t want to be on it unless you have to.

[3] Electronic medical records.

[4] HLA antigens are the blood particles that make up the major components of an organ match.

[5] Cardiac care unit.


End file.
